“Fuck you, Greg!” With two miles to go in the 1990 Mercer Island Half Marathon, I was done. I’d trained for several months and knew for a fact that I was better prepared than my roommate, who had put in much less mileage and had recently taken up the practice of cigarette-sneaking. But I had …
Category Archives: Recreation
Rainier to Ruston 2019
As I stepped up to traverse another stretch of sidewalk along the mean streets of Tacoma (the nearest runner half a mile ahead) I dodged a generator with a thick yellow cord strung between it and a decrepit, older model RV. I realized while spending 5.2 of my Leg 11’s six miles on streets or …
I Went To Japan
Silence is Golden One of [Shusaku] Endō’s most powerful novels, Chimmoku (1966; Silence), is a fictionalized account of Portuguese priests who traveled to Japan and the subsequent slaughter of their Japanese converts. Catholic missionary activities in Japan began in earnest around 1549, but according to OnePeterFive, nearly five hundred years later, [o]nly 1% of the Japanese population, split evenly between Catholics and …
Tidying Up Versus Where’s My Free Stuff
The dreaded line that said You’ve Been Dumped From Vine arrived with as little fanfare as had the invitation. Twelve years ago, Amazon rolled out a program that allowed select persons to receive free stuff in exchange for reviews. By the time I got my invite, I’d been snobbishly submitting book-reviews-only for a long time, …
Nation’s 16th Biggest District Spends More Than a Million to Implement “Free” Discovery High School Mathematics Curriculum
On the surface, it appears that Wake County Public School System (WCPSS) did everything right in their high school mathematics curriculum adoption process. So how did they end up with Mathematics Vision Project (MVP), and why does this “free” curriculum cost so much? Hire consultants with a discovery-style teaching philosophy and you’ll end up with …
Cedar Hollow Paleofauna
Thousands of years ago, glaciers roamed the earth. “The sheer weight of a thick layer of ice, or the force of gravity on the ice mass, causes glaciers to flow very slowly. Glaciers periodically retreat or advance, depending on the amount of snow accumulation or evaporation or melt that occurs. Alternatively, glaciers may surge, racing …
“Just Like Insulin for Diabetes”
The word was easy to read even from my vantage point, upside down from the doctor’s view. In front of her lay a sheet of paper. Across the top, she’s written “antidepressants.” The word may have been followed by a question mark. And it was placed there because of what I’d shared. My son: didn’t …
Tunnel to Viaduct 8K
The wave felt like an enormous ocean swell, except that I was nowhere near the water. It was January 17, 1994, hours after the 6.7 magnitude Northridge Earthquake struck, when a 5.0ish aftershock sent me and a dozen other onlookers scurrying for safety from our vantage point atop a concrete bridge from where we could …
Where the Sword Ferns Grow
On my 19,947th day on earth, I learned something that came as a complete surprise: I am not invincible to injury. Racing down Mount Constitution in early October, the medial meniscus at the back of my knee detached from the bone with an unmistakable (but not painful) “pop.” A month later, I broke my arm. With …
Moran Constitutional Relay 2018
Snap! I felt a pop at the back of my knee as I reached mile five along one of the most scenic sections of single track trail I’d ever traversed. Under different circumstances, I would have stopped, but with several miles to go on my Moran Constitutional Relay team’s penultimate leg, there was no time …
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