Category Archives: Space

Air Quality, Book Review, Colorado, Covid 19, Dogs, Exercise, Fort Collins, Minimalism, Pandemics, Religion, Science, Science Fiction, Space

MUSINGS FOR FRIDAY 27TH, MAY 2022

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“As far as we can tell from a purely scientific viewpoint, human life has absolutely no meaning. Humans are the outcome of blind evolutionary processes that operate without goal or purpose. Our actions are not part of some divine cosmic plan, and if planet earth were to blow up tomorrow morning, the universe would probably keep going about its business as usual. As far as we can tell at this point, human subjectivity would not be missed. Hence any meaning that people inscribe to their lives is just a delusion.” Yuval Noah Harari

This is an image from the Hubble Space Telescope called The Hickson Compact Group 40. This year NASA celebrated Hubble’s 32nd birthday by showcasing this image. The telescope was put into orbit around earth by the crew of the space shuttle Discover on April 25, 1990. The Hickson group is about 300 million light years away in the direction of the constellation of Hydra. It has the designation 40 because it is the 40th entry in the catalog of relative small galaxy groups compiled by Paul Hickson. In 1982 he published a list of 100 compact galaxy groups based on his examination of the Palomar Observatory Sky Survey plates. In the above image you see five galaxies in all: three spiral shaped galaxies, an elliptical galaxy, and a lenticular or lens shaped galaxy. Image credit: Image Credit: NASA, ESA, STScI; Image Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI). If you are interested in the above image please see these links: https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2022/celebrating-hubbles-32nd-birthday-with-an-eclectic-galaxy-grouping and https://hubblesite.org/contents/media/images/2022/012/01FYSACDTCSR43GVXBWTHDFHCT and https://skyandtelescope.org/sky-and-telescope-magazine/hickson-compact-groups/ and the YouTube video below!

“Large numbers of strangers can cooperate successfully by believing in common myths. Any large-scale human cooperation – whether a modern state, a medieval church, an ancient city or an archaic tribe – is rooted in common myths that exist only in people’s collective imagination.” Yuval Noah Harari

The above image is from the Hubble Space Telescope. It is showing a galaxy that is named GAMA 526784. It is what is know as an ultra-diffuse galaxy and appears in the above image as a fuzzy patch of light. It is about four billion light years away in the constellation Hydra. These types of galaxies have a few interesting quirks. One of which is the either / or property of having an abundance of dark matter or the almost complete lack of dark matter. Another feature of these types of galaxies is the increased number, as comparted to other galaxies, of “globular clusters.” Globular clusters are spherical collections of stars. They have a high concentration of their stars in the center of the structure, thought to be due to gravity. Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, R. van der Burg; Acknowledgment: L. Shatz. If you are interested in the above image please see these links: https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2002/hubble-views-a-galactic-oddity and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Globular_cluster and https://www.universeguide.com/galaxy/gama526784

“Morality doesn’t mean ‘following divine commands’. It means ‘reducing suffering’. Hence in order to act morally, you don’t need to believe in any myth or story. You just need to develop a deep appreciation of suffering.” Yuval Noah Harari

This image was taken by the Hubble space telescope and it is a picture of the spiral galaxy M99, but is also known as NGC 4254. Depending on which catalog of galaxies you are looking at. The M or Messier catalog, which was begun by astronomer Charles Messier in the 18th Century is one that is popular with amateur astronomers due to the listing of objects that can be seen with small telescopes. The NGC or the New General Catalogue was compiled by John Louis Emil Dreyer in 1888. It list many more objects (in the 1000s) than the Messier Catalogue (about 110), some of which can only be seen with very large telescopes. The above galaxy is called a “grand design” spiral galaxy due to it’s well defined spiral arms. It is in the constellation Coma Berenices and is 42 million light-years from Earth. Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, M. Kasliwal, J. Lee and the PHANGS-HST Team. If you would like to learn more about the above image please see these links: https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2022/hubbles-double-take-on-a-spiral-galaxy and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messier_99 and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_General_Catalogue and Explore – The Night Sky | Hubble’s Messier Catalog | NASA

“When the faithful are asked whether God really exists, they often begin by talking about the enigmatic mysteries of the universe and the limits of human understanding. ‘Science cannot explain the Big Bang,’ they exclaim, ‘so that must be God’s doing.’ Yet like a magician fooling an audience by imperceptibly replacing one card with another, the faithful quickly replace the cosmic mystery with the worldly lawgiver. After giving the name of ‘God’ to the unknown secrets of the cosmos, they then use this to somehow condemn bikinis and divorces. ‘We do not understand the Big Bang – therefore you must cover your hair in public and vote against gay marriage.’ Not only is there no logical connection between the two, but they are in fact contradictory. The deeper the mysteries of the universe, the less likely it is that whatever is responsible for them gives a damn about female dress codes or human sexual behavior.” Yuval Noah Harari

The above is another NASA Hubble Space Telescope image. It shows a section of the spiral galaxy NGC 247 and it is located about 11 million light-years away in the Sculptor Group. The Sculptor Group is a loose group of galaxies visible near the south galactic pole. Or for us Northern Hemisphere viewers it would be on our southern horizon around November depending on how far North you are. Sculptor was named by the French astronomer Nicolas Lacaille in the 1700s. The North Galactic Pole lies in the northern constellation Coma Berenices and as mentioned above the South Galactic Pole lies in the southern constellation Sculptor. The Sculptor Galaxy is one of the closest galaxies to earth. NGC 247 is also know as the Needle Eye Galaxy due to a dark hole containing very little stars in the galaxy. Below is a better close up view of this galaxy and you can see the dark hole at the bottom of the galaxy. Image credit for the above picture: NASA, ESA, and H. Feng (Tsinghua University); Image processing: G. Kober (NASA Goddard/Catholic University of America) and image credit for the below picture: Mark Hanson of Hanson Astronomy Photos: https://www.hansonastronomy.com/ngc-247-the-needles-eye-galaxy

If you would like to learn more about these images or the Sculptor Group or the galaxy NGC 247 then please see these links: https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2022/hubble-images-a-dwarf-spiral-with-multiple-mysteries and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sculptor_Group and https://earthsky.org/constellations/constellation-sculptor-galaxy-south-galactic-pole/#:~:text=Also%20above%20Alpha%20Sculptoris%2C%20but%20below%20the%20Sculptor,0h%2051m%2026.00s%2C%20Dec%20%3D%20-27d%207m%2042.0s. and https://www.hansonastronomy.com/ngc-247-the-needles-eye-galaxy

“Fiction isn’t bad. It is vital. Without commonly accepted stories about things like money, states or corporations, no complex human society can function. We can’t play football unless everyone believes in the same made-up rules, and we can’t enjoy the benefits of markets and courts without similar make-believe stories. But stories are just tools. They shouldn’t become our goals or our yardsticks. When we forget that they are mere fiction, we lose touch with reality. Then we begin entire wars `to make a lot of money for the corporation’ or ‘to protect the national interest’. Corporations, money and nations exist only in our imagination. We invented them to serve us; why do we find ourselves sacrificing our life in their service.” Yuval Noah Harari

HEY!! I AM LOOKING AT YOU!! THAT’S WHO!!

If you are reading this then you have continued to survive Covid 19 so far and so have I! Yea for us again! I am still hoping that I can keep saying this until the Covid Marry-Go-Round is done! Lol. Enough is enough.

By the 6th of May we were back to 70 thousand cases plus per day – the start of a new surge as some would see it. The number was probably much higher with some experts saying that it was closer to 140,000 per day. This discrepancy is due to home testing that is not reported and states that have stopped reporting in a timely manner. Oh well what are you going to do? The good news was that the official death rate and hospitalizations had continued to drop. In the last 30 days from April 6th, to May the 6th, we had added approximately 13,000 to 14,000 new deaths for a total of 1,024,500 . That is about half from what it was the previous 30 days when we added 26,000 new deaths. So that is a good direction to be going. Even though this number is high it seems like we are making progress. Of course with a rise in cases there is always the possibility for a subsequent rise in hospitalizations and eventually deaths. Time will tell and there should be a better picture with this by the end of the month.

Well the above picture for total deaths and total cases still has not changed. These have been the top 10 states for infections and deaths for a very long time. The only exception to the above is when you look at the number of total infections, then North Carolina jumps in to the picture, with infections higher than Michigan and New Jersey. When I see this kind discrepancy it leads me to believe that North Carolina is under reporting deaths just like Florida is doing. NC even has a bigger population than Michigan and New Jersey so they should have a similar death rate. But NC’s is around 14 to 15 thousand less than the other two states. What is the old saying? Something is a little fishy in North Carolina. Oh well, I guess it would look bad for business to be reporting accurate numbers.

By the middle of the month, we were continuing to increase the number of new cases. The official count was 90,000 plus cases per day or probably double to triple that number. The number of deaths per day was still holding steady at 200 to 300. The Covid variant BA.2.12.1 was fast becoming the cause of a majority of cases. This is a subvariant of the BA.2 virus and has been deemed much more transmissible than BA.2. There are new variants (BA.4 and BA.5) in South Africa that are of concern, unfortunately at this time there is not enough information to make any predictions on them as of yet.

By the end of the month, we had added another 6500 deaths due to Covid ( one million and thirty one thousand total or 1,031,000) and on paper this is a very good thing. We are going in the right direction. The only fly in the ointment so to speak are states that have stopped reporting. As I have looked at the numbers each day there are very large discrepancies between states with similar population. With one states not reporting any deaths and another consistently reporting multiple deaths each day. So I am not really comfortable with the accuracies of these numbers. My guess is that the death count is much, much higher than what is reported.

If you interested in looking at the numbers for yourself, please see this link: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

If you interested in getting a good understanding of what is going on with Covid each week without having to watch the news, check out this link for the Osterholm Update on YouTube: https://youtu.be/FC1G09xkOFc

And if you don’t want to listen on YouTube you can check out Apple Pod cast. Dr. Michael Osterholm is an American epidemiologist, Regents Professor, and Director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. Dr. Osterholm gives an update each week on where we are with the virus. Really good information directly from the source and not spun by the news media channels.

Enough about Covid! Damn I am going to be so glad when this is over with. It has gone on way too long but not too unexpected. It is a coronavirus after all and will never totally go away.

On a somewhat more positive note, the month of May was another great one for air quality. This was due to the continued windy weather that we seemed to have had just about every other day. Unfortunately we are still in drought like conditions. Therefore, while it was really great for AQ it was not so great for fire weather. Fortunately we have not had any fires of significant size. There have been a few popping up here and there around the state but nothing like what is going on in New Mexico.

With the continued rehab of the knee injury, I did not get in a lot of running for the month, but I did get in a lot of walking and some biking.

This picture was taken on April 6th, 2022 about 530pm in the afternoon. Still a little cold out this time of year but getting warmer.
This picture was taken the next day on April 7th, 2022 at about 7pm. It was a beautiful evening. The two peaks in the background are Mt. Meeker and Long Peak. They are about 40 miles away as the crow flies so to speak. There were only a few sunset pictures for the month of April due to the air quality. It was great. Not much in the way of particulates in the air, so the sunset were not as colorful.
This picture was taken on April 10th, 2022 at about 5pm in the afternoon. Here I am looking Northwest along the Poudre River. I really like this spot for picture taking. Again it was another beautiful afternoon. Great air quality and cool temps!
This picture was taken on April 13th, 2022 at about 6pm in the evening. It was a great walk with Marvin and Janet. Marvin always looks pretty serious but he is pushover when it comes to the cat. Lol.
This picture was taken on April 18th, 2022 at about 4pm in the afternoon. Due to my knee injury I did a lot more biking the month of April. In hind sight, this is what I should have been doing all long, but oh well you live and learn. This is looking South West on the Spring Creek Bike trail in Fort Collins. It makes a loop at its end but offers connections to other dirt paths/trails in the area. Very nice to have.
This picture was taken on April 23rd, 2022 at about 5pm in the afternoon. It is looking North along another path called the Powerline Trail. I love this trail because it is so close to where I live and you can stay on dirt for about 90% of the trail. I use it so much that I call it the Powerline Treadmill. Lol.
The above two pictures were taken on April 27th, 2022 at about 4pm in the afternoon. These are Crabapple Trees that line a part of the Powerline Trail. They make these tiny apples that are very tart to the taste. I see people collecting these every year to make ciders. They tell me their home brews are delicious. I once read some history on “Jonny Appleseed” that said why he was so popular with the settlers was due to type of apple trees he planted – trees for making alcoholic cider! Lol. I read this story from a book by Michael Pollan called the Botany of Desire.
This last picture was taken on April 28th, 2022, at about 630pm in the afternoon. Not many sunset pics but this one was probably the best one for the month of April. Here I am looking West toward the sunset across one of the ponds at the East end of the Spring Creek Trail. We had several cloudy days but not much rain or snow at all for the month of April. Lots of wind that continued into May making the air quality fantastic for the Front Range of Colorado but unfortunately increasing the fire danger significantly.

While I did not have a lot of foothill or mountain scenes due to the knee injury, this was a good thing. I did not spend as much money. Lol. With the price of gas and diesel going up as high as it has, it has become very expensive to drive anywhere of significant distance. My guess is that fuel prices are not headed down anytime soon due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. I have missed two races (one half marathon and one ultra) so far this year due to the knee injury and will miss another one at the start of June. (another ultra) This will leave me three more to get ready for. The closest one being the first week of July – the Silver Rush 50. Not really sure at this point if the knee will be up for it. But I will keep rehabbing it and hoping for the best as we roll forward into summer.

It was another great month for reading and I would like to give a couple of book recommendations.

The first one is called “The Run Walk Run Method” by Jeff Galloway.  If you are someone that wants to get back into running or someone that is coming off of an injury from running (like myself), or someone that just wants to get healthier, then this book is for you.  I got the book after suffering a knee injury back in March of this year and this is one of the first books I came across when doing a google search.   So after reading a little more on the author’s ideas, I thought this would be a good one to invest in and I am glad that I did.  There are some parts of the book that are very repetitive.  And a few sections where the author wants to sell you a Galloway Timer.  But if you can read past these parts and finish the book, you get the overall idea of the run walk run method.  And how it works.

One of the parts that I really liked the most in the book was the “psychology of walking” and how it is “very much” ok to just walk.  It really made me think about how I feel when “just walking”?  Did I feel like a failure deep down and if I did why was that?  Pretty interesting when I started to think about it.  I did not get the book as an audio book but as an e-book.  Lol.  Surprise.  Almost all of my other book reviews have been audio books.  But it was cheaper as an e-book so I opted for that.  And, most importantly, it does not come as an audio book. If you do decide that this book is for you, get a good timer.  I opted for a phone apt called Seconds Pro Interval Timer.  It was about 5 dollars but it works great and is very configurable.

Of course you can find this book at Amazon: https://amzn.to/39DX2ij

The next book I would like to give a recommendation to is called “The Happy Runner” by David Roche and Megan Roche MD.  As I have gotten older my running times have slowed ever so slightly and this is a little concerning to me.  My wife tells me I am just old.  Lol.  Of course, she is right, it is normal with getting older, but that still does not mean we cannot improve.  So, I am always on the look out for books that help with this aspect.  I came across this book just by accident and the title intrigued me a bit so I ordered it and I am happy that I did.  It is not your typical running book with all the science and pathophysiology of running.  Instead, it is all about how to “enjoy” the running process.  To not be event or time orientated.  It gets back to the old saying, “It’s the journey and not the destination.”  They go into great depth on the mental aspects of how to become a happy runner. 

I liked this book a lot.  But if you are new to running or if you want a better understanding of running science, then this is not the book for you.  This is a book that you read in addition to a book like “The Science of Running” by Steve Magness.  No this is a book more about happiness.  You could even say it is not just about running.  That running is just the background story and it is really about how to be happier.  And oh, by the way, you can do it while running.  I got this book in paper back form and I am glad that I did.  I have found myself going back and rereading a few chapters and sections over again.  It is not available as an audio book.

Of course you can find this book on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3KRCRKv

Another great book if you want to know more about the science behind running effectively is called just that, “The Science of Running:  How to Find Your Limit and Train to Maximize Your Performance” by Steve Magness. In the Amazon description the first sentence is, “If you’re looking for how to finish your first 5k, this book isn’t for you.”  I thought that was pretty funny, but in reality it could be you.  Especially if you are someone that wants to know more, a lot more, about that “Science,” even if it is only your first 5k.

The first part of the book is all the pathophysiology of what happens when you are running. And in my opinion it is the best part.  The second part is on turning all that pathophysiology into the proper type of training.  This is where “the not for you part, if you’re looking to do you’re first 5k” comes in.  Lol.  With all kidding aside, it is a great pathophysiology book on running but you probably need a different one in describing how to train for your first 5k.

Now one other warning, this book was published in 2014, so a little bit of it could be dated.  Science is always changing.  My suggestion is to start with this book but don’t let it be your only book on “running science.” I listened to the book as an audio book but I liked it so well I am re-reading it again in the paperback version.  The audio book makes it hard to flip back and forth between sections.  So traditional format is probably better for a deeper understanding.       

Of course you can find this book on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3kYWZQv

Another book I would like to give a recommend on is called “Regenesis” by George M. Church and Ed Regis. The book was first published in 2012.  George is a geneticist, molecular engineer and chemist.  Ed Regis is a science writer.  I first heard about George when he spoke on Synthetic Biology while watching a Ted Talk on YouTube and that piqued my curiosity.   

Before I go too much further, let me explain on some of the background of why I am interested in this book besides the Ted Talk.  First, I had become much more intrigued in the potential for genetic manipulation in all aspect of life since I first read Nancy Kress’s SiFi book Beggars and Choosers (2nd book of a trilogy).  This is a great science fiction book on the potentials of genetic manipulation.   That book was published in 1994.  Second, fast forward to the CRISPR gene editing techniques in the last 5 years and the mRNA technology that allowed our current two main vaccines against Covid.   These techniques are very significant because they allow for genetic material to be edited with extremely high precision and best of all it is much cheaper when compared to older practices.  So when Mr. Church talks about some of the potential applications of genetics and synthetic biology it is worth taking note.  Synthetic biology is the redesigning of organisms for other useful purposes by re-engineering them to have new abilities. 

Now for a little bit of the down side.  The book is a little hard to understand in some sections, especially for the general reader.  I found it tedious at times on some of the technical sections and wondered if it might have been better for the author to leave some of that out.  If you can get around this, then the book gives you a lot to ponder on where we are going with this technology.  The book was first published 10 years ago and a lot of what is talked about has not come to pass, but I see that as a good thing.  This technology is so revolutionary in scope, it needs to be well thought out and then some, before being used in the real world.  We don’t want the “unintended consequences” scenario to be humanities epitaph. Lol.  I listened to the book as an audio book but it would work well in any format.

Of course you can find this book on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3shxZrw

The last book I would like to give a recommendation to is the final book in a series called The Expanse. This is book 9 and is called “Leviathan Falls: Expanse, Book 9” by James S.A. Corey.  This was a Science Fiction series that also has a TV adaption started by the SiFi Channel and then later picked up by Amazon.  It was called simply the Expanse.  If you have not read any of the books or seen the TV series, they are all well worth the read and watch in my opinion.  I first became interested in the series when I saw a few of the first episodes on SiFi and wondered if it was based on a book.  Lol.  I was not disappointed.  What I liked best about the series in the books was how earth and the geopolitics were depicted in the future.  Especially with the establishment of mars as a colony and eventually as its own separate self-governed planet independent from earth.  Another area that was good was the rise of the “Belters.”  Humans that were instrumental in the mining and colonization of the asteroid belt and how they were marginalized and abused by the Inners (people from Earth and Mars).  Now imagine, setting this against a back drop of “bigger things going on” that could change all of humanity’s future for the better or maybe for the worse.  And this is what gives you great story telling for the entire book series. 

The last book gives a good and satisfying conclusion in my opinion to the entire series.  The author’s name for these books is actually two people, Ty Franck and Daniel Abraham.  I got all the books as audiobooks.  This worked well for long runs and bike rides as well as doing chores around the house.  I think the story would work well in any format.

Of course this book can be found on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3KQn7ro

Last but not least I would like to show case a new piece of art work. This one is the fourth in a series that I call “Transhumanist Jesus.” It is done in pen and ink, mounted on painted white board and protected by Mod Podge. It has a protective final finish of acrylic spray sealant. It measures 7.25 inches wide by 10.25 inches tall and when hanging it is about 15 inches tall. I have called these studies in Jesus by several different names, Jesus of Borg or SiFi Jesus or the current name of Transhumanist Jesus.

I decided to do these pieces initially over anger of the Texas GOP’s enactment of their draconian anti-abortion law. I had only planned to do a limited number, but now with the possibility of the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe vs Wade, I will continue to make them.  I have three adult daughters and while they might not agree on whether it is right or wrong to get an abortion, they all agree that it is “their right” to choose. And I agree with them. So that is how the project started out, but it morphed into something a little different. Did you know that there are at least 10,000 different denominations of Christianity in the world? Of course, some say this number is much higher, but I figure 10,000 is a safe estimate. Knowing this I thought why not make up my own Jesus?! A lot of other people have. So, I did. And what I came up with was a tough but accepting LGBT SiFi Jesus. A Jesus that would assimilate all other Jesuses, even Republican Jesus, into a hive mind and create an accepting and loving collective for all people and all religions. In Star Trek, the Borg are considered the enemy but, in my version, I have turned it around and made “Jesus of Borg” the good guy, the savior.

Now you might be wondering where “Transhumanist Jesus” comes into the picture. It started after I read a book called Transhumanism and Transcendence – Christian Hope in an Age of Technological Enhancement by Ronald Cole-Turner. In a nutshell so to speak, Christianity and depictions of Jesus will have to change to keep up with the “Biotech” or risk the fate of all previous mythologies that have become nothing more than footnotes in history. Since time immortal, we have been defined as a species, by our technology. As it advances so must our depictions of god.

TRANSHUMANIST JESUS # 4

This piece and other types of art work are for sale and can be found on my Etsy site: https://www.etsy.com/shop/strugglingprotoplasm/edit?ref=seller-platform-mcnav

Well I have come to the end of another blog post! Yea! I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it! Before I go I want to touch on something that might help with this crazy inflation we are having on just about everything! And of course, you might have guessed, I am going to say become minimalist. Lol. So why minimalism you might ask? Well on the surface it is about owning less stuff. Having fewer possessions which translates into buying less. Our society encourages overindulgence and overconsumption at every turn. Think about all the commercials you see in just a single day telling you to buy, buy, buy. Either directly or indirectly. And that is the problem. We buy and buy and buy always looking for the happiness the commercials have promised, but never finding it because it is not there. I am going to let you in on a little secret, happiness is not a destination but a path. Minimalism is one of many paths that can provide you with the happiness you seek. And at the same time help you with inflation because you are buying less. It is just that simple. You buy less. Of course this assumes that you have enough to cover all your basics – food, clothing and housing. But after that ask yourself what do you really need?

Being minimalist is not all black or all white. There are many shades of gray. Minimalism is different for each individual. You can choose how much “minimalism” you want in your life and how much you don’t want. It is about understanding what matters most in life and removing the things that do not support the “what matters most part.” It is a way to break free of a rigged consumeristic system. A way to buy time for yourself and the planet. It is a way to bring back the joy we all want and need in our lives. The really cool part, there is nothing to buy. It is just a change in mindset. A change in attitude.

Ok, ok, enough of the soapbox, but if your interested and want to learn more about sustainability, minimalism and the steady state economy, please see these sites: https://www.sustain.ucla.edu/what-is-sustainability/ and https://www.theminimalists.com/minimalism/ and https://steadystate.org/ and https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2018/12/27/35-ways-reduce-carbon-footprint/

So take care my friends and if you have not gotten vaccinated, then get it done. We all want this “Groundhog Day – Covid – Marry- Go – Round” to end. Until next time Adios!!

May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous…, leading to the most amazing views.” Edward Abbey

Air Quality, Art, Book Review, Climate Change, Colorado, Covid 19, Dogs, Environment, Exercise, Fort Collins, Injury, Pandemics, Science, Space

MUSINGS FOR FRIDAY 29TH, APRIL 2022

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“According to Buddhism, the root of suffering is neither the feeling of pain nor of sadness nor even of meaninglessness. Rather, the real root of suffering is this never-ending and pointless pursuit of ephemeral feelings, which causes us to be in a constant state of tension, restlessness and dissatisfaction. Due to this pursuit, the mind is never satisfied. Even when experiencing pleasure, it is not content, because it fears this feeling might soon disappear, and craves that this feeling should stay and intensify. People are liberated from suffering not when they experience this or that fleeting pleasure, but rather when they understand the impermanent nature of all their feelings, and stop craving them. This is the aim of Buddhist meditation practices. In meditation, you are supposed to closely observe your mind and body, witness the ceaseless arising and passing of all your feelings, and realize how pointless it is to pursue them. When the pursuit stops, the mind becomes very relaxed, clear and satisfied. All kinds of feelings go on arising and passing – joy, anger, boredom, lust – but once you stop craving particular feelings, you can just accept them for what they are. You live in the present moment instead of fantasizing about what might have been. The resulting serenity is so profound that those who spend their lives in the frenzied pursuit of pleasant feelings can hardly imagine it. It is like a man standing for decades on the seashore, embracing certain ‘good’ waves and trying to prevent them from disintegrating, while simultaneously pushing back ‘bad’ waves to prevent them from getting near him. Day in, day out, the man stands on the beach, driving himself crazy with this fruitless exercise. Eventually, he sits down on the sand and just allows the waves to come and go as they please. How peaceful!” Yuval Noah Harari

The above two images are from Nasa Hubble Space Telescope and they made headlines at the end of March for a star that is 12.9 billion years away from earth. Meaning that it has taken light 12.9 billion years to reach us. We are seeing light that came from the universe when it was only about 7 percent of it current age. Hubble was able to capture this image due to gravitational lensing. This was caused by a chance alignment with a huge galaxy cluster located between the star and the telescope. The galaxy cluster is so massive that it warps the fabric of space time, creating a type of magnifying glass. The scientists that discovered the star named it Earendel or morning star. There is hope that when the James Webb telescope is fully calibrated, it can confirm Earendel and measure for temperature and brightness. If you would like to learn more check out this link: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2022/record-broken-hubble-spots-farthest-star-ever-seen and the YouTube video below!

“The greatest scientific discovery was the discovery of ignorance. Once humans realized how little they knew about the world, they suddenly had a very good reason to seek new knowledge, which opened up the scientific road to progress.” Yuval Noah Harari

This is an image take by the Hubble Space Telescope and it is of the galaxy NGC 5921 and it is about 80 million light years from earth. Or another way to think about it, is that it has taken the light of this galaxy 80 million years to reach us. How extraordinary that is when you think about it. Of course this is not considering the first image in this blog post. That one took light about 13 billion years to reach us. I think numbers like these can lose their meaning if you don’t have frames of reference. A way that I get my mind around it is by thinking of seconds: One millions seconds equals about 11 days, but 1 billion seconds equals almost 32 years. Big difference. Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, J. Walsh; Acknowledgment: R. Colombari. If you would like to learn more about the above image or see a calculator for seconds to years and vise versa, please see these links: https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goodard/2002/hubble-spies-a-serpentine-spiral and https://www.calculateme.com/time/seconds/to-years/1000000

“The capitalist and consumerist ethics are two sides of the same coin, a merger of two commandments. The supreme commandment of the rich is ‘Invest!’ The supreme commandment of the rest of us is ‘Buy!’ The capitalist–consumerist ethic is revolutionary in another respect. Most previous ethical systems presented people with a pretty tough deal. They were promised paradise, but only if they cultivated compassion and tolerance, overcame craving and anger, and restrained their selfish interests. This was too tough for most. The history of ethics is a sad tale of wonderful ideals that nobody can live up to. Most Christians did not imitate Christ, most Buddhists failed to follow Buddha, and most Confucians would have caused Confucius a temper tantrum. In contrast, most people today successfully live up to the capitalist–consumerist ideal. The new ethic promises paradise on condition that the rich remain greedy and spend their time making more money and that the masses give free reign to their cravings and passions and buy more and more. This is the first religion in history whose followers actually do what they are asked to do. How though do we know that we’ll really get paradise in return? We’ve seen it on television.” Yuval Noah Harari

This is an image from the Hubble Space Telescope of the spiral galaxy NGC 7172 and it is approximately 110 million light years from earth. It was first cataloged by the English astronomer John Herschel on September 23rd, 1834. It is located in the constellation of Piscis Austrinus, which means “the southern fish.” The constellation is in the southern celestial hemisphere. The galaxy made news when astronomers inspected the electromagnetic spectrum and discovered it had a supermassive blackhole at it’s center powering its galactic nucleus. This type of nucleus is characterized by a intensely bright compact core as in the above image and is known as a Seyfert galaxy. These are named after Carl Seyfert, who was an American astronomer that did significant research in this area of astronomy. Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, D. J. Rosario, A. Barth; Acknowledgment: L. Shatz. If you would like to learn more about this galaxy, constellation and Carl Seyfert, please see these links: https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2022/hubble-views-a-galaxy-with-an-active-black-hole and http://www.sci-news.com/astronomy/hubble-active-spiral-galaxy-ngc-7172-10654.html and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piscis_Austrinus and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Keenan_Seyfert

“It takes a lot of courage to fight biases and oppressive regimes, but it takes even greater courage to admit ignorance and venture into the unknown. Secular education teaches us that if we don’t know something, we shouldn’t be afraid of acknowledging our ignorance and looking for new evidence. Even if we think we know something, we shouldn’t be afraid of doubting our opinions and checking ourselves again. Many people are afraid of the unknown, and want clear-cut answers for every question. Fear of the unknown can paralyze us more than any tyrant. People throughout history worried that unless we put all our faith in some set of absolute answers, human society will crumble. In fact, modern history has demonstrated that a society of courageous people willing to admit ignorance and raise difficult questions is usually not just more prosperous but also more peaceful than societies in which everyone must unquestioningly accept a single answer. People afraid of losing their truth tend to be more violent than people who are used to looking at the world from several different viewpoints. Questions you cannot answer are usually far better for you than answers you cannot question.” Yuval Noah Harari

This is an image of the galaxy NGC 4571. Can you guess what kind of galaxy this is? If you said spiral, then you are right. The image was made with the Hubble Space Telescope using it’s Wide Field Camera 3. The galaxy is about 60 million light years from earth and is located in the constellation Virgo. Which is the second largest constellation in the zodiac. The above galaxy is located in what is know as an asterism. A group of stars having a popular name but smaller in size than a constellation. An example of this is the Big Dipper which comprises seven of the brightest stars in the constellation Ursa Major. Another one would be the Southern Cross. The asterism for this galaxy is called Coma Berenices. It is an ancient asterism dating back to the time of the early Greeks and Egyptians. It is named after an Egyptian queen Berenice II Euergetis. The name translates as Bernice’s Hair. Image Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, J. Lee and the PHANGS-HST Team. If you would like to learn more about the above constellation, and Queen Berenice please see these links: https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2022/hubble-spies-a-stunning-spiral and http://www.sci-news.com/astronomy/hubble-ngc-4571-10634.html and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asterism_(astronomy) and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berenice_II_of_Egypt

“How can we distinguish what is biologically determined from what people merely try to justify through biological myths? A good rule of thumb is ‘Biology enables, Culture forbids.’ Biology is willing to tolerate a very wide spectrum of possibilities. It’s culture that obliges people to realize some possibilities while forbidding others. Biology enables women to have children – some cultures oblige women to realize this possibility. Biology enables men to enjoy sex with one another – some cultures forbid them to realize this possibility. Culture tends to argue that it forbids only that which is unnatural. But from a biological perspective, nothing is unnatural. Whatever is possible is by definition also natural. A truly unnatural behavior, one that goes against the laws of nature, simply cannot exist.” Yuval Noah Harari

HEY!! I AM LOOKING AT YOU!! THAT’S WHO!!

If you are reading this then you have continued to survive Covid 19 so far and so have I! Yea for us again! I am still hoping that I can keep saying this until the Covid Marry-Go-Round is done. Lol. Man it has been long enough!

Looking at the numbers on April 6th, it appears that in the last 30 days (March 6th to April 6th) we have added another 26 thousand deaths for a total of 1,010, 537. Yes you read that right! We went over the 1 million death mark back at the end of March! The only good news about this is we are down one half the deaths from the previous 30 days.

The above image has not changed from the last month. All of the same states for the number of deaths is still the same. Of course, Florida is not reporting. I always assumed that the CDC could go to a state to assess the public health hazards and make recommendations or to see if counting statistics are being accurately reported in the name of public health. But this is not the case. Because the CDC did not exist at the time the Constitution was written, the CDC has no jurisdiction over state rights. Meaning that they have no power to ensure things are being counted accurately in the name of protecting the public health. They have to be invited in. Does make you wonder if we need some kind of Constitutional Amendment that can be used when the next pandemic occurs to help ensure public health. In my opinion the CDC needs more control and legal enforcement in matters of public health.

By the middle of the month we had added another 5000 deaths in this country alone. Again it is hard to get your head wrapped around these numbers. And due to the variant BA2 the cases had climbed again to about 40 thousand per day. But due to home testing and non-reporting this is probably an underestimate of how many new cases are occurring per day. At least hospitalizations have not climbed much. This is not due to the variant being less severe but due to the number of individuals that are vaccinated, have gotten booster shots or had prior Covid. It is much more transmissible than previous variants. Right up there with Chicken Pox. Some states like New York have reinstated mask mandates due to rising numbers.

Around the middle of the month a Federal Judge ruled in Florida (of course) on a case that said the CDC over stepped it bounds when issuing a mask mandates. Her name is Kathryn Kimball Mizelle. I am wondering if she realizes how much death and disability she will have caused over the coming months. Shortly after this ruling the airlines and other transit systems dropped their mask mandates. Oh well – “Stupid is as stupid does.”

By the end of the month or the day of publishing we were up to about 55 thousand cases per day officially. Of course this number was much higher due to unreported testing with the home kits and some states that have just stopped reporting in a timely manner. The total death count was approximately 1,020,500. Or about 10 thousand extra deaths in the last 23 days. So while that is a big number, at least it is going in the right direction of down. I hoping that I can keep saying this for the next month. Time will tell.

If you interested in looking at the numbers for yourself, please see this link: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

If you interested in getting a good understanding of what is going on with Covid each week without having to watch the news, check out this link for the Osterholm Update on YouTube: https://youtu.be/FC1G09xkOFc

And if you don’t want to listen on YouTube you can check out Apple Pod cast. Dr. Michael Osterholm is an American epidemiologist, Regents Professor, and Director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. Dr. Osterholm gives an update each week on where we are with the virus. Really good information directly from the source and not spun by the news media channels.

Again enough about Covid! Lol. I will be so glad when this is over. The month of March was a good one for getting outdoors. I did not do a lot of running because of a knee injury but I did get in a lot of walking. Pretty much everyday with the dog and Janet. Due to the weather patterns and lots of wind, the air quality was pretty good. I would even have to say since the start of this year the air quality has been unusually good. And that my friends has been a blessing and a curse. The wind has been the reason for the cleaner air but when you add in the current drought conditions here on the front range, it has created some very significant fire danger. So far, we have been pretty lucky. There have been a few small fires, that were quickly controlled, but nothing like what has been going on in New Mexico and Arizona. It seems like this is way too early in the year for these types of conditions and I am a little nervous about what the summer will bring.

This picture was taken March 2nd, 2022 at about 5:30pm in the afternoon. It was a great afternoon for a walk with Janet and Marvin.
This picture was also taken on March 2nd, 2022 at about 6pm in the evening. We did have some nice sunsets in March but not as many as we usually do because of the cleaner air. It is one of those things that if you have beautiful sunsets it usually means the sun is reflecting off the particulates in the air. Fewer particulates fewer colors.
This picture was taken March 3rd, 2022 about 4pm in the afternoon. Here Marvin and I are looking North East from Horsetooth Mountain Park. It was a very nice day for a run with temps in the low 50s.
This picture was taken March 6th, 2022 at about 6pm. We did get some cold weather in the month of March with snow. Unfortunately it was not enough to make up for the drought. This picture is looking West across the neighborhood pond.
This picture was taken on March 8th, 2022 at about 530pm in the afternoon. Marin is staring at 4 to 5 deer hidden in the tall grass and trees. It was a much warmer day from a few days before with temps in the lower 40s.
This picture was taken March 15th, 2022 at about 715pm. What a beautiful evening. The week before we had been down in the single digits and teens for temperatures and in this picture the temps were up around 60 degrees. Typical for Colorado this time of year.
This picture was also taken on March 15th, 2022 at about 7pm.
This picture was taken on March 22nd, 2022 at about 7pm in the evening. Another beautiful Colorado sunset.
This picture was taken on March 26th, 2022 at about 530pm in the afternoon. It was a beautiful day for a bike ride. This is looking South East along a section of the Poudre Bike path.
This picture was taken on March 28th, 2022 at about 7pm in the afternoon. Our youngest daughter was along for the walk and took the picture. Another beautiful day in Colorado.

I did not have a lot of pictures of mountain scenes due to my knee injury. In order to help heal the knee, I had to really decrease the amount of running that I was doing and just keep the walking. Of course the knee injury did not just happen but was the result of me overdoing it. Lol. If you are a runner then you will know what I mean. As runners we all have this mindset that if a little is good then more is better and I am guilty. What is the old saying “We are our own worst enemy.” Oh well, live and learn. Then relearn, then promise yourself you won’t do that again. Then forget you said that and do it again… Lol.

It was another great month for reading. And I would like give a couple of book recommendations.

First, if you interested in a great A.I. book written by a world renowned researcher in said field go no further until you check out the book called Human Compatible:  Artificial Intelligence and the Problem of Control by Stuart Russell.  What I found most interesting in this book was the author’s view of what we might expect from A.I. in the near future and what most likely is still just a fantasy, even in the long term.  Of course with this said the author does bring up the old joke about “What an old professor says is not possible, has probably already happened or will happen very soon, but what a young professor says is just around the corner, is usually years off.”  All kidding aside it is an interesting book looking at this topic.  From the possible development of human level general A.I. (Strong A.I.) to the personal data assistant (Weak A.I.). 

He also devotes a significant part of the book to how we might be able to develop A.I. in such way that we won’t end up with the Terminator and Skynet issues depicted in Hollywood Movies.  You might be thinking that is a ways off, but in reality we might get there quicker than you imagined even without the development of a strong A.I.  Think of a really smart but not sentient data assistant.  I would love to have something like this to help with my day to day life.  It would be wonderful until one human decides to use it against another human.  Or a group of humans?  Or… you can see where this might lead.  So how do we prevent a simple concept as the personnel data assistant from being used in a malicious way?  Good question with so many possibilities for things to go wrong so to speak.  This is a great book to read if you want to get a broader understanding of where we are with A.I. and it’s possible future development.  Of course, I listened to this book as an audio book but it would work well in any format.  You can find it on Amazon at:  https://amzn.to/3Mqx6Vj

The next book I would like to recommend is one by a former MIT president Susan Hockfield and is called “The Age of Living Machines: How the Convergence of Biology and Engineering Will Build the Next Technology Revolution.”  If you are someone that has not been following some of the technological changes occurring in genetics and what is termed bio-engineering / synthetic biology, then this short book would be a good one to read.  She gives examples of using “biology” to potentially solve real world problems that would usually be approached as a classical physics challenge in the past. 

One of my favorite examples from the book was the research in using a virus to make a battery at the nano scale level.  That is using a genetically modified “biological virus” to assemble inorganic molecules into predesigned structures to make the battery.  Another one was the research in creating engineered viral or bacterial colonies to filter water and air for humans similar to what you would find in aquariums. Now be warned there is some plugging for MIT and she does mention a few times she was a former MIT president but if you can get past that advertising, it is an interesting and thought provoking book to say the least.  I got it as an audio book but it would work well in any format.  You can find the book on Amazon:    https://amzn.to/3K6m71H  

The next book that I would like to STRONGLY recommend is “Basic Economics, Fifth Edition:  A Common Sense Guide to the Economy” by Thomas Sowell.  Mr. Sowell is an American economist, historian, social theorist, and senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution.  If you were like me, you might have gotten a basic economic course in college (a long time ago) but that would be about it or if you were someone who did not go to college then you probably have never taken one. Maybe in High School? I don’t really know.  Either way this is a book that is for all of us.  The only people I would leave out would be those that are actual economist. What I loved about this book is the author uses real world examples of past events to help explain each chapter topic.  And with all the things going on in the world today with the pandemic, like supply chain issues, higher gas prices, inflation in general, housing, etc.…  This is a very relevant book.   

What I learned in each chapter helped me to see past some of the current political BS that is spun by both political parties when it comes to how the economy is doing or not doing.  Lol.  Now be warned this is a big book and I got it as an audio book.  There was 24 hours of listening time.  I think it would work well in any format but I am one of those readers that does better with “dry” material as an audio book.  I would listen to a single chapter while doing house chores or on a long walk with the dog.  And this worked very well for me.  I actually found myself listening to some chapters more than once.  This is an excellent book on how the economy functions.  Of course you can find it on Amazon:  https://amzn.to/3KdHjTs    

Last but not least I would like to show case a piece of art work. I call this one Cosmic Sisters. I got the idea after reading about the LIGO detector for gravitational waves. GWs had been theorized to exist but up until LIGO it was just a theoretical idea. One of the research questions that led to the building of the detector was if you have binary pulsars (2 neutron stars orbiting each other) they should create gravitational waves. And low and behold that is what they found. This confirmation of gravitational waves has opened up new areas of research in Astrophysics. Which I think is pretty cool. The sisters represent a Binary Pulsar.

This piece measures 14 inches wide by 17 inches tall. It is done in pen and ink and sealed with mod podge. The drawing is done on thick paper and mounted to painted (black) white board.

COSMIC SISTERS

This piece and other types of art work are for sale and can be found on my Etsy site: https://www.etsy.com/shop/strugglingprotoplasm/edit?ref=seller-platform-mcnav

Well I have come to the end of another blog post! Yea! I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it! Before I go I want to touch on the report by the International Renewable Energy Agency that came out at the end of March. In a nutshell the report says that if we want to avoid catastrophic warming, let me say that again, catastrophic warming in the coming years we much take “radical action” to prevent it. Wow! Radical action. Meaning that we need to drop our world wide carbon emissions by 45% in the next 8 years. Think about that for a moment. By 2030, we need to be 45% lower in our carbon emissions. Unreal when you think about it.

So how do we do this?? We don’t want things to look like the above picture. Will switching to Electric Vehicles save the planet? The simple answer is NO. It is not enough. It is going to take a lot more. And this will mean lifestyle changes. How we work, how we play, how we eat, how we produce power, even how many pets we have. All of these things have to come into play.

If a lot of this sounds like too much to deal with, there is another way of pulling all of the different factors together. And that is becoming minimalist. It will lower the carbon foot print. And it is something we can all do on an individual level. It is a way to fight back against our over rampant consumeristic culture that is leading to an unlivable planet. When I first heard about the idea of minimalism I thought of a monk living in a monastery, bare walls, owning nothing, eating the same gruel each and everyday, etc.… But in reality this is not the case, though I guess if you wanted to do this you could. Lol. Minimalism is different for each individual. You choose how much “minimalism” you want in your life and how much you don’t want. It is about understanding what matters most in life and removing the things that do not support the “what matters most part.” Of course this usually translates to getting rid of all unnecessary material goods as a first step. But it does not have to be. Minimalism is so much more than just this.  And again, let me stress, each individual decides how much “minimalism” they want in there life. Becoming minimalist is just a change in mindset. Nothing to buy, nothing to purchase, just a change in how you look at your life and the world.

Ok, ok, enough of the soapbox, but if your interested and want to learn more about sustainability, minimalism and the steady state economy, please see these sites: https://www.sustain.ucla.edu/what-is-sustainability/ and https://www.theminimalists.com/minimalism/ and https://steadystate.org/ and https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2018/12/27/35-ways-reduce-carbon-footprint/

So take care my friends and if you have not gotten vaccinated, then get it done. We all want this “Groundhog Day – Covid – Marry- Go – Round” to end. Until next time Adios!!

May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous…, leading to the most amazing views.” Edward Abbey

Air Quality, Art, Book Review, Colorado, Covid 19, Dogs, Exercise, Fort Collins, Meditation, Minimalism, Pandemics, Psychology, Science, Science Fiction, Space

MUSINGS FOR FRIDAY 25TH, MARCH 2022

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“You don’t need to travel the world or do big things to live an extraordinary life. Be present. Notice the beauty around you. Be curious. Try the things that interest you. Be brave. Start the things you’ve been putting off. Create something. Learn something. Teach something. And do it all for the love of it.”

Lori Deschene

Tiny Buddha
This image is of Arp 298. The Arp stands for Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies. It is named after Halton Christian “Chip” Arp. He was an American astronomer and over time he compiled a catalog of unusual galaxies titled the Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies. It is an excellent reference of interacting and merging galaxies. Many objects in the atlas are referred to primarily by their Arp number. The above image is from the NASA/ESA Space Telescope. It is a picture of two galaxies NGC 7469 and IC 5283 (smaller one). The bigger galaxy is approximately 200 million light years away in the constellation of Pegasus. Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, A. Evans, R. Chandar. If you would like to learn more about the above galaxies please see these links: Hubble Peers at Peculiar Pair of Galaxies | NASA and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halton_Arp and Hubble Sees Stunning Pair of Interacting Galaxies: Arp 298 | Sci-News.com

“Examine and define your values. Really. What do you want for your life? How do you want to feel? What sort of life will allow you to feel at peace at the end of your lifetime? How would you live if you lived with no regrets? This is not a task-oriented “Bucket List.” This is a way to have the sort of life you want, to identify what grounds you and guides you.”

Angela Marchesani

Tiny Buddha
This is an image from the Hubble Space Telescope of two galaxies, NGC4496A and NGC 4496B. They look as if they are side by side and overlapping, but in reality they are millions of light years apart. The image is created by a chance alignment. NGC4496A is about 47 million light years from earth while 4496B is about 212 million light years away. Both lie in the constellation of Virgo. Image Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, T. Boeker, B. Holwerda, Dark Energy Survey, Department of Energy, Fermilab/Dark Energy Camera (DECam), Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory/NOIRLab/National Science Foundation/Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Sloan Digital Sky Survey; Acknowledgment: R. Colombari. If you would like to learn more about his image please see these links: https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2022/hubble-observes-a-not-so-close-encounter and http://www.sci-news.com/astronomy/hubble-galaxy-pair-ngc-4496-10584.html

“You’re not perfect, you don’t know everything, and you don’t have all the answers. But let me let you in on a little secret, no one expects you to, either. We all battle our self-doubt and fear. We all have our shortcomings… Even that one person that looks like they’ve got it all together is working through some stuff. They have some areas where they falter. In fact, they’d probably have a good laugh at you for thinking they’ve got everything figured out.”

McKayla Afolayan

Tiny Buddha
This is a Hubble Image of a dwarf starburst galaxy named Henize 2-10. It was named after the astronomer Karl Henize. This galaxy recently made headlines because it has a black hole that is making stars instead of eating them up. This is the opposite effect of what is seen in larger galaxies, when material falls toward the black hole. The dwarf galaxy lies 30 million light years away in the constellation Pyxis. Astrophysicist Amy Reines was the first to publish evidence for a black hole in this galaxy in 2011 and is the principal investigator on the new observations. Image credit: NASA, ESA, Zachary Schutte (XGI), Amy Reines (XGI); Image Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI). If you would like to learn more about this galaxy and Amy please see these links: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2022/hubble-finds-a-black-hole-igniting-star-formation-in-a-dwarf-galaxy and Hen 2-10 – Wikipedia and https://www.amyreines.com/

“Sometimes, you just have to let go of your tight grip of how you think things should be or how quickly they should come together and simply let things run their own course. By releasing control and letting the currents carry you along, paradoxically, you gain more control… Of your attitude and your response to what’s happening to you at the moment.”

Keri Olson

Tiny Buddha
This is an image of the galaxy NGC 1097 and was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. It is considered a barred spiral galaxy because of a central bar shape running through the spiral. The bar is made up of stars. About half of all spiral galaxies have this feature. Our Milky Way is considered a barred spiral galaxy. You have to see them from different views, otherwise it will simply look like a circle and you won’t see the spirals. NGC 1097 is about 48 million light years from earth. And is located in the constellation Fornax. This constellation is located in the Southern hemisphere. The name means furnace and was coined by the French astronomer Nicolas Louis de Lacaille in 1756. Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, D. Sand, K. Sheth. If you would like to learn more NGC 1097 and any of the above mentioned features please check out these links: https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2002/hubble-sees-the-eye-of-a-colorful-galaxy and https://planetfacts.org/barred-spiral-galaxy/ and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fornax

“Let go of your attachment to the outcome. Once we set our intention, we have little control over the outcome. Often others are involved, and we can’t force them into helping us achieve our goals. Realize that no matter what happens, you will be okay. And know that adopting this mindset will free you up mentally so you’re able to focus on controlling what you can control… your own choices and actions.”

Ash Blankenship

Tiny Buddha

HEY!! I AM LOOKING AT YOU!! THAT’S WHO!!

If you are reading this then you have continued to survive Covid 19 so far and so have I!! Yea for us again!! I am still hoping that I can keep saying this for all of this year. I really, really mean that, especially if you read my blog post. Lol.

Looking at the numbers on March 6th, it appears that in the last 30 days (February 6th to March 6th) we have added another 58 thousand deaths for a total of 984,000. Wow. And not in a good way. The only good news, is that the numbers are lower by 12 thousand from the previous 30 days. Omicron has really reeked havoc on those that did not get vaccinated. Unfortunately there are plenty of individuals out there that have still not been vaccinated to keep the Covid fires burning for a long time. And this does not include the real possibility of other new variants. Some have argued in the media that the Omicron variant was a milder form of Covid but that is not true. This is were statistics can trip you up if your not careful. The reason it seemed milder over all is that it infected the vaccinated too. And there are millions that have been vaccinated, so on the surface it seems to be milder, but in reality it was only milder if you were vaccinated.

Oh well, the above image has stayed the same. It shows the top ten states with the most Covid deaths. California is still number one followed by Texas. Florida is probably much closer to the top than what they are reporting due to their continued lack of said reporting.

By the middle of the month several countries overseas were in an Omicron wave: Hong Kong, South Korea, Germany, Vietnam, the UK, France, Russia, etc… Of course the United States had more active cases than any other place in the world. The approximate total number of deaths in the United States stood at 997,000. Or an increase of 13 thousand in the 10 days. (From March 6) I am guessing that by the first week of April we will top the 1 million mark “officially” for Covid deaths. It just seems weird writing this. That number should make us all stop what we are doing and take a moment for reflection. But I think we have all become immune to it. Unless of course, you have had someone die in your circle of friends and family.

By the end of the month… and it really was not the end of the month, like I thought it was going to be. It was the 22nd of March?! The death toil from Covid in the United States was over 1 million deaths. Unreal. Let me say that again. We are over 1,000,000 deaths in this country alone. Wow! We officially went over the one million mark 3/22/22. Of course the official number will not be published until it is all verified. At the time of publishing this blog, the unofficial number had risen to about 1,003,000. We were still adding about 600 to 800 deaths per day and about 30,000 new cases each day.

Oh well, what are you going to do?? The question in my mind is when will the next variant of “significant” concern show up. When I started writing, there was the BA.2 variant of Omicron (there are actually 4 known Omicron variants) and the worry was that it was even more contagious than the first version of Omicron. By the tenth of the month there was a newer variant of Covid created by the combining of Delta and Omicron. It was nicknamed Deltacron and is known as a recombinant virus. It has been mainly seen in France, Denmark and the Netherlands but as far as I know it has not been of much concern in the United States. The only one that is now thought to be a potential issue in the United States is the BA.2 variant of Omicron. It is currently about 40% of all new cases in the US. That is up 35% from the first of the month.

If you interested in looking at the numbers for yourself, please see this link: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

If you interested in getting a good understanding of what is going on with Covid each week without having to watch the news, check out this link for the Osterholm Update on YouTube: https://youtu.be/FC1G09xkOFc

And if you don’t want to listen on YouTube you can check out Apple Pod cast. Dr. Michael Osterholm is an American epidemiologist, Regents Professor, and Director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. Dr. Osterholm gives an update each week on where we are with the virus. Really good information directly from the source and not spun by the news media channels.

Well again… Enough about Covid! The month of February was another great month for getting out doors here on the Front Range of Colorado. While we continued to have cold and snowy weather, the air quality for the most part was fantastic compared to the same time last year. I think this was due to the frequent weather systems that had moved into the area over the month. Unfortunately, the mountains did not get as much snow as they had back in December due to this shift, but it kept the air much cleaner on the Front Range.

This picture was taken on February 1st, 2022 at about 5:30pm in the afternoon. It was the start of another round of cold and snow for the front range as can be seen in the picture below! Lol.
This picture was taken on February 2nd, 2022 at 2pm in the afternoon. The storm dumped about 8 to 12 inches of snow.
Happy Birthday Marvin! He turned three years old in February. The above picture was taken when he was about 3 months old. Lol. Sometime in May of 2019. Compare it to the picture below from this past February! He did get pretty big! Lol.
This picture was taken February 5th, 2022 at about 4:30pm in the afternoon.
This picture was taken on February 10th, 2022 at about 5:45pm in the afternoon. We did have some beautiful sunsets in February but due to the wind and frequent weather systems, the air was pretty clean. Not as many particulates. So we did not get as many with vivid colors as in previous months.
This picture was taken February 14th, 2022 at about 5:15pm in the afternoon. Most of our sunsets for February, that I got to witness, were of this type. Interesting contrast to the one above.
This picture was taken on February 20th, 2022 at about 5pm in the afternoon. Had to put one in of me and Marvin!
This picture was taken 24th, 2022 at about 5:45pm in the afternoon. Another beautiful one from our neighborhood. Compare the colors to the one below at about the same location and time.
Last picture! Lol. This one was taken on February 28th, 2022 at about 6pm. Same location and about the same time as the one above.

Well it was another good month for running, so I did get in a few audio books. Lol. During long runs, bike rides, cross country skiing, etc. this is one of my favorite things to do. Besides exercise leading to better health, I have found that listening to audiobooks can greatly improve your understanding of the world around you. I got into this habit when I was commuting the hour to work and back each day. At first it was with audio cassettes until Audible came out with their digital format and membership plan. And I would have to say, this one habit (listening to audiobooks) has totally changed my life.

The first audio book I would like to give a recommendation on is called Ravenous:  Otto Warburg, The Nazis, and the search for the Cancer-Diet Connection by Sam Apple.  This book was recommended to me by a friend and I was not disappointed.  But at the same time it was not what I expected.  If you are looking for a book that is “all” about the Cancer/Diet connection then this is not really that book.  It does talk about the connection in round about ways but it is not a “hard and fast give you the facts” type of book.  It is much more the history book, especially on Otto Warburg, the Nazis, Hitler and other scientists caught up in the craziness of Germany during the time of Hitler.  But it is still a fascinating read.  The Author did a pretty good job in my opinion of weaving two types of books (History and Science) together to create a compelling and interesting read.  I loved the history parts of the book.  Especially the parts on the idiosyncrasies of Hitler and Germany at the time.  And the science parts of the book: the metabolic aspects of cancer, carbohydrates, refined sugar, and diabetes, were very thought provoking.  Of course I listened to the book as an audio book but it would work in any format.  It is a great read and good food for thought.

Of course this book can be found on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3t6k0FV

The next book I would like to give a recommendation on is called “The Lost Art of Running” by Shane Benzie with Tim Major. I came across this book when I was looking on YouTube for videos on correct running form. If you are runner, you will at some point get injured. It is just inevitable and that is what happened to me. Once you get up to a certain mileage or age in years, the pounding starts to add up and injuries can happen. One way to help prevent them in the first place, besides adequate rest, is correct running form. The problem with looking on YouTube or the Internet is that the “correct” way to run can be a very subjective and confusing issue.

The author of this book seems to have really done his research by looking at some of the best runners in the world and analyzing their running form. Especially the Kenyan runners. That is what most of the first two thirds of the book is about. For some people this might be a turn off. Especially if you are just looking for the down and dirty and you see it as just a filler, so to speak. But I would argue against that. By giving you, the reader, a taste of his research and the struggle to find the best running form, Shane makes a strong case for his ideas about proper running technique. And it is in the last couple of chapters where all of his research comes together and makes the book well worth the read. This book would work well in any format but might be better in a traditional format because of all the information presented in the last chapters. If found myself listening to the last couple of chapters several times. Of course you can find it on Amazon: https://amzn.to/36evlv5

Last but not least, I would like to showcase a few new pieces of art work before I go. The first one is the third “Sun Face” in a series I started in October 2021. It is constructed of 3/4 inch plywood and painted with high quality latex paint. Then sealed with a clear latex primer. The sculpture measures about 28 inches by 28 inches by 3 inches deep. Its weight is about 25lbs. They are designed for exterior placement, but if you are putting it outside, I would suggest a protected location. The latex paint, while durable, will gradually fade over time if placed in a location with strong sunlight. And like all paint, it is susceptible to the whims of harsh weather. This one is called “Squished Lego Sun Face 3.”

Squished Lego Sun Face 3

The second one was inspired by a book on Transhumanism that I gave a recommendation to in the last blog post. The book is called Transhumanism and Transcendence – Christian Hope in an Age of Technological Enhancement by Ronald Cole-Turner (editor). It is a collection of different writings from many different authors over the years. It is a look at how Christianity will deal with the advances in science that could lead to a whole different type of human. When you see drawings with the idea of Transhumanism it is usually a picture of some kind of robot that appears half human and half robot. My idea is that this revolution in human development will be invisible for the most part. And that is what my drawing is about. It is the microscopic nano machines and power cells that enhance human longevity, health, power and intelligence. Who wouldn’t want to live longer and healthier, no cancer, no heart disease, no metabolic disease, be smarter with an IQ of 300, and have the strength and stamina of 10 humans. Imagine all these tiny, tiny machines, all scattered through out the body, making all of this possible. Not just humans 3.0 but humans 5.0. I call this one “Transhumanist Musings 5.0”

The drawing is done in pen and ink and is protected with a traditional picture frame and glass. It measures approximately 12 inches wide by 15 inches tall.

Transhumanist Musings 5.0

These pieces and other types of art work are for sale and can be found on my Etsy site: https://www.etsy.com/shop/strugglingprotoplasm/edit?ref=seller-platform-mcnav

Well instead of talking about the idea minimalism directly in this last section. I thought I would try to give you a little bit of an understanding of why I practice meditation everyday and how this relates to minimalism indirectly. Meditation is something that I do everyday. Even if it is only for a couple of minutes. It is a habit that I have worked hard to cultivate and it is now to the point that if I don’t do it everyday I feel like there is something wrong with me. Lol. ( Ya I know what you are thinking and my wife agrees with you)

I got into the practice about 15 years ago when I was having some real issues with anxiety. But my first exposure to it was when I was about 8 or 9 years old and was taking a “karate” class at the YMCA. It was a form of karate called Shorin-ryu, which I believe came out of Okinawa. The instructor was a believer of the benefits of a short meditation before practice and one after practice. I can remember to this day about the talk he gave us about how it would “settle the mind” for the task at hand (practice). And how the meditation at the end, got your mind ready to re-enter everyday life outside the Dojo or practice floor. Unfortunately the classes only lasted for about 6 months. But, I think this first exposure to meditation was the catalyst for my later reintroduction to the practice later in life.

The first reason I started back was to reduce anxiety. And it has, but not in the way that you would think. Meditation does not remove your problems and challenges, but it helps you to invite those problems and challenges in so to speak. So that you can really get to know them. By knowing more fully what really makes you anxious can help to take a lot of the fear and dread out it and in turn this can reduce your anxiety. The idea is to make anxiety your friend. I am using anxiety as my example but you could use any kind of “challenge.”

The second reason I have continued to practice meditation is that I wanted to find a way to be more engaged in life. I mean really engaged in whatever I am doing at the time that I am doing it. After all, meditation must function in our everyday lives, for if it’s not working there, it is not really working at all. Most people have the idea you are only practicing Zen when you are sitting, counting breaths and holding still. But the reality is much deeper than that. You start with the stillness to increase your perceptions of life around you, but then you have to be able to combine the stillness with movement. That movement is the way you live your life day to day in everything that you do. The end point is the realization that the stillness and the movement are one and the same. Think of it as two different sides of the same coin. And if you are wondering, I am not there yet. But I am trying.

This does connect with “minimalism” indirectly in that it helps you to be more “mindful” in your buying practices. And the idea is that you might think a little more carefully before your next purchase of that “must have” widget, contraption, clothing, shoes, whatever it may be item. That only gets used one time and takes up space in the garage, closet, kitchen drawer, etc… And if your wondering, I am guilty of this too. Lol.

Ok enough of the lecture, but if you are interested in getting started, check out this link from Amazon on a great book in how to do meditation: https://amzn.to/37I2srr

Well I have come to the end of another blog post! Yea! I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it! If your interested and want to learn more about sustainability, minimalism and the steady state economy, please see these sites: https://www.sustain.ucla.edu/what-is-sustainability/ and https://www.theminimalists.com/minimalism/ and https://steadystate.org/

So take care my friends and if you have not gotten vaccinated, then get it done. We all want this “Groundhog Day – Covid – Marry- Go – Round” to end. Until next time Adios!!

May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous…, leading to the most amazing views.” Edward Abbey

Art, Book Review, Colorado, Covid 19, Dogs, Exercise, Fort Collins, Minimalism, Pandemics, Science, Space

MUSINGS FOR FRIDAY 25TH, FEBRUARY 2022

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“Our comforting conviction that the world makes sense rests on a secure foundation: Our almost unlimited ability to ignore our ignorance.” Daniel Kahneman

This is a Hubble Space Telescope image of barred galaxy NGC 3318. It is a spiral galaxy and lies in the constellation Vela and is about 115 million light-years from earth. It was first discovered by the English astronomer John Herschel on March 2, 1835. Some feel that the outer edges of the galaxy almost resemble a ship’s sails swelling in a light wind. Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, European Southern Observatory (ESO), R. J. Foley; Acknowledgment: R. Colombari If you would like to learn more about his galaxy please see these links: Hubble Sights a Sail of Stars | NASA and http://www.sci-news.com/astronomy/hubble-vlt-barred-spiral-galaxy-ngc-3318-10464.html

“A reliable way to make people believe in falsehoods is frequent repetition, because familiarity is not easily distinguished from truth. Authoritarian institutions and marketers have always known this fact.” Daniel Kahneman

This is an image of Venus, that was made by using information from NASA’s Magellan spacecraft and the Pioneer Venus Orbiter. The planet is named after the Roman goddess of love and beauty. But it surface is anything but that, with a temperature that is about 788 degree Fahrenheit or about 420 degree Celsius. Very hot indeed. NASA wants to study the planet much more in-depth because it is thought to have had an atmosphere very similar to earth billions of years ago. Even having an ocean on its surface. The current idea is that a runway greenhouse effect evaporated all the water, creating a cloud layer thick with carbon dioxide. This traps the heat from the sun which results in significant planet warming. By understanding this process better it is thought we can gain insights into how our own world is warming. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech. If you would like to learn more please see these links: https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/studying-the-lost-habitable-world-of-venus and https://www.universetoday.com/22538/how-hot-is-venus/

“When people believe a conclusion is true, they are also very likely to believe arguments that appear to support it, even when these arguments are unsound.” Daniel Kahneman

The above image is from the Hubble Space Telescope and is showing an example of how galaxies interact with one another. The cool part about the above picture is it shows how this happens in a almost three dimensional way. This is especially rare for an image in deep space. The above galaxies, the large spiral one is NGC 169 and the smaller one is IC 1559, are named Arp 282. Arp stand for atlas of peculiar galaxies. These two are about 319 million light years away in the constellation of Andromeda. In this image you can actually see streams of matter from one galaxy being drawn into another. This is caused by tidal forces. The more massive galaxy pulling material from the less massive one. Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA. If you would like to learn more please check out these links: http://www.sci-news.com/astronomy/hubble-interacting-galaxy-pair-arp-282-10528.html and https://esahubble.org/images/potw2206a/

“It’s frightening to think that you might not know something, but more frightening to think that, by and large, the world is run by people who have faith that they know exactly what is going on.” Amos Tversky

This is a Hubble Space Telescope image of galaxy NGC 1705. It is in the Pictor constellation and is about 17 million light years from earth. It is considered a dwarf galaxy. Dwarf galaxies are made up of several million stars as opposed to our Milky Way which has around 200 billion. Or to see it another way, a dwarf galaxy has one star to every 2000 in the MW. Hubble has imaged this galaxy before using the Wide Field Camera 2 in 1999, but the above image was done with the Wide Field Camera 3 (It replaced Camera 2 in 2009). The image is composed of ultraviolet, near infrared, and optical parts of the spectrum. Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, R. Chandar. If you would like to learn more about the above image please see these links: https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2022/hubble-revisits-a-galactic-oddball and http://www.sci-news.com/astronomy/hubble-ngc-1705-10504.html and https://askanearthspacescientist.asu.edu/dwarf-galaxies and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pictor

If an elderly but distinguished scientist says that something is possible, he is almost certainly right; but if he says it is impossible, he is very probably wrong. Arthur C. Clarke

HEY!! I AM LOOKING AT YOU!! THAT’S WHO!!

If you are reading this then you have continued to survive Covid 19 so far and so have I!! Yea for us!! I am still hoping that I can keep saying this for all of next year. I really, really mean that, especially if you read my blog post. Lol.

Looking at the numbers on February 6th, it appears, unfortunately, that in the last 30 days (January 6th to February 6th), we have added another 70,000 deaths – for a total of 926, 000. What this means is that in the last 30 days compared to the previous 30 days we have jumped 26 thousand. I would say how tragic this is but I think I am becoming a little immune to the numbers. And to top it off, the number is probably much higher since some of the southern states and those with conservative legislatures are not reporting as accurately as they should so to speak.

Omicron has reeked havoc on those that have not gotten vaccinated and the next variant will probably do the same. Again, this is a senseless tragic loss of life.

Well, the above image still has not changed much in the last 30 days. Still the same top 10 states with Covid deaths. California is still leading the way over Texas by a few hundred deaths. And it has been this way for months. The real mystery is how many people in Florida have actually died of Covid since they stopped reporting accurate numbers over a year ago. I am guessing that by the time all of this is said and done it will be amazing, in a bad way, to see how high the death toll actually was.

Oh well what are you going to do?! The lifting of mask mandates? Is that really a good idea? The CDC has been emphasizing the need for continued masking, but individuals and states have been clamoring for the easing of those restrictions. I am guessing that by the time this blog post is published the CDC will have caved in to those demands. Unfortunately there is still plenty of firewood to burn in this pandemic. Meaning there are plenty of individuals that did not get vaccinated or get their booster and those that are immunocompromised. It is therefore not a good idea to lift the mask mandates as of yet. But due to political pressure and that is what it is, not good science, they will be lifted and I am guessing there will be another surge of infection by the middle to the end of March. All depending on when the mandates were lifted.

The Covid death toil continued to climb for the entire month of February. (2000 to 3000 per day on average) The Omicron variant did prove to be less severe for those that were fully vaccinated, but it still took a significant number of unvaccinated individuals over the last 30 days.

By the middle of the month, the death toil in the United States was about 950,000 and counting. So in less than ten days we had added another 24,000 mothers, father, grandfather, grandmothers, sons, daughters, nephews, uncles, aunts, and nieces… And that was just here in this country. Also in February, on a very disheartening note, the pediatric death toil for kids that were not vaccinated or too young to be vaccinated was about 2 to 3 per day in the USA.

By the time of publishing, February 25th, the total deaths were over 970 thousand. That is an increase in 44 thousand deaths in 19 days. And we were still adding about 2000 deaths per day. The only positive was the number of new infections continued the downward trend.

The question in my mind as the Omicron variant fades is, what is next? Will we have a period of calm and then another significant variant? Most of the experts seem to think this might be the case?! One scenario is that we have another less deadly variant that out competes Omicron and creates more of a seasonal type of virus. Which would be a much better outcome. There are scenarios out there that are a lot more bleak than this one. But I guess time will tell. Either way, I have a feeling that the virus is not done with us yet.

If you interested in looking at the numbers for yourself, please see this link: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

If you interested in getting a good understanding of what is going on with Covid each week without having to watch the news, check out this link for the Osterholm Update on YouTube: https://youtu.be/FC1G09xkOFc 

And if you don’t want to listen on YouTube you can check out Apple Pod cast. Dr. Michael Osterholm is an American epidemiologist, Regents Professor, and Director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. Dr. Osterholm gives an update each week on where we are with the virus. Really good information directly from the source and not spun by the news media channels.

Ok that is really enough about Covid! I so want it to be over but… Time to move on to something much better to talk about and that was the month of January on the Front Range of Colorado!

The month of January was nothing like the month of December. And that was a great thing! Yea! Winter finally came back to Colorado’s front range. It was cold. Temps down below zero on some nights and there seemed to be more cloud cover. The thing about this January compared to the one last year, we did not seem to get as many temperature inversions, so the air quality was great for exercising in the outdoors. While going through all the pictures for January, I realized there were some great sunset pics. So I think I will call the month of January 2022, the sunset month.

The above picture was taken on January 1st, 2022 at about 3:30pm in the afternoon. The temperature was about 8 degrees and the crazy part was two days before the temps were close to 60 and I was trail running in shorts?! In this picture, I am looking south along the Powerline trail in Fort Collins.
The above picture was taken January 2nd, 2022 at about 4:30pm in the afternoon. Again another cold day with temps down in the single digits. This view is looking across one of the ponds along the Poudre trail in Fort Collins.
The above image was taken on January 3rd, 2022 at about 5pm in the afternoon. It is looking west, across our neighborhood lake. The temps had actually warmed up a bit to the teens by the third of January. The two mountains you see in the background are Mt. Meeker and Longs Peak. There are about 40 miles distant as the crow flies.
The above picture was taken on January 6th, 2022 at about 5pm in the afternoon. It is looking West again across our neighborhood lake. I get some of the best sunset shots from this vantage point in the neighborhood. If conditions are right and you time it just at the right moment, then they can truly be spectacular. It was another cold one with temps in the low teens and single digits.
The above image of Marvin was taken on January 10th, 2022 at about 4pm in the afternoon. I am looking North in the Pineridge Open Space behind Fort Collins. Marvin and I were doing a little bit of trail running in the open space. The temps had gradually warmed up into the 30s and some of the snow had melted since the 1st. This made for a very enjoyable trail run. Marvin was keeping a close eye on other dogs in the area.
The above picture was taken on January 14th, 2022 at about 5pm in the afternoon. Another beautiful sunset pic. This is from a spot in our neighborhood.
The above image was taken on January 17, 2022 at about 5pm in the afternoon. I felt lucky to have so many great afternoons of clean air and cold temps. The two big mountains in the background are again Mount Meeker and Longs Peak. It seems unreal that they are 40 miles away in a straight line.
The above picture was taken on January 22nd, 2022 at about 5pm. This is looking West across the Poudre River in one of Fort Collins open spaces. Towards the end of the month the temps were a little more consistently in the 20 to 30 degree range. The warm-up made for some nice running with Marvin.
The above picture was taken on January 28th, 2022 at about 5:30pm in the afternoon. Here I am looking West from a point on the Poudre trail. It truly was the month of sunsets. I actually had “sunset pictures” from almost every other day. Lol. Crazy. I had no idea until looking through them all how many times the lighting conditions were just right.
This last picture was taken on January 31st, 2022 at about 4:30pm in the afternoon. Marvin and I were doing a little muddy trail running in the Pineridge open space behind Fort Collins. The temps had warmed up into the lower 40s which was great but it made for some very muddy conditions. Oh well, Marvin did not really seem to mind much. Lol.

The part of January that I am having trouble getting my head wrapped around is the comparison of December to January. It was so warm compared to January. And then of course you have the devastating wildland Marshall fire that burned parts of the towns of Superior and Louisville on December 30th. Just unreal when you think the really cold air dropped into Colorado just a day later with single digits and snow, and if the fire had happened a day later it would have not been an issue. What is the old saying! “Timing is everything.”

Well I did get in some running, even with all the ice and snow for January, and therefore I have some book reviews.

So, if you’re looking for a way to improve your life in 2022, I have two books to recommend.  The first one is Atomic Habits:  An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones, written by James Clear.  I first reviewed this book back last September but I felt it needed to be reviewed again.   It is that good.  I have to admit I was a little hesitant to get this book when I first heard about.  All I could think was ok great, “another book” on how to create good habits and break bad ones.  It has been done many times before so who needs it?  But there was a little voice in the back of my mind telling me I needed this book and I am very glad that I listened.  Now before you object and say “Yaaa I have read similar books so what” let me say the difference in this book is how it is presented. 

Some people have been introduced to the Japanese idea of Kaizen (continuous improvement with small changes) and I think over the years it has taken on a lot of other ideas besides this, especially in the business world.  In Atomic Habits, the author presents the most important part, the essence, in my opinion of Kaizen. The idea of small changes (the habits) over time that eventually lead to success.   And he does this in a framework that is very understandable, personable and most importantly actionable.  I do not think the author ever uses the word “Kaizen” but this is what the book so beautifully reminds me of.   This is a great book.  I first listened to it as an audio book and I did eventually buy the paperback version.   Of course you can find the book on Amazon:   https://amzn.to/3BaN95e  

The second book that I would like to recommend in this same vein as Atomic Habits, is called Mastery:  The Keys to Success and Long-Term Fulfillment by George Leonard.  This is another one of those books that I liked so much that I have the traditional paperback version and the audio book.  This book was written way before Atomic Habits came out but it draws a similar conclusions to the path of self-improvement.  The principles are definitely Kaizen (continuous very small improvements leading to successful outcomes) but pulled from a Zen philosophical point of view.  George does not mention Kaizen in the book but you will get the drift. 

The best example in the book is his descriptions of learning and mastering moves in the Japanese martial art of Aikido. (Back when it was truly taught as an art form and not a profit making machine)  Especially the parts about hitting plateaus when you feel like you are not making any progress.  Very enlightening.  The other part of the book I liked touches on the anti-mastery mindsets and how to avoid them.  When all said and done a great pair of books to have in your library to be read and reread time after time.   Of course you can find the book on Amazon:   https://amzn.to/3BcGvLO

Another book I would like to recommend is one about Transhumanism written from a Christian point of view called Transhumanism and Transcendence:  Christian Hope in the an Age of Technological Enhancement by the author Ronald Cole-Turner.  He teaches theology and ethics at the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary.  He has written a few other books on genetics and human cloning, but they date from the 1990s.  This one is from 2011.    

I have become more interested in the idea of Transhumanism over the last 10 years.  Especially with the advancements in A.I., Biotech and Genetics.  One of the biggest advancements in this field is the CRISPR gene editing techniques.  It has made gene editing, in all organisms, much easier, accurate and cheaper than ever before.  To put this in perspective, some of the older geneticist have made comments such as “What I can do now in my garage with CRISPR, I would have needed a million dollar, state of the art research lab when I started out.”  Pretty crazy when you think about it. 

The above book does not really talk about any of that.  Lol.  The book looks at Transhumanism as inevitable outcome of this research and how it will effect and be treated by Christianity. While we are all worried about what is happening in Ukraine, the next Covid variant or any of the other big world events,  the research and development of Transhumanism is going on quietly behind the scenes.  If you have reached the age of 60, then you have probably already experienced some of this already.  Think artificial lenses for cataracts, joint prosthesis’s, synthetic by-pass grafts for your heart and aorta, and /or just about anything that you have had done to keep you living. Or in some cases, to make you better than you were before.  Even hearing aids, diabetic gadgets, leg and arm prosthetics, breast implants, could all be considered transhumanist.  What has changed now is that the current advances in technology will usher in a new age of all of this and more.  Imagination may become the only limit. So how do we deal with it from a religious point of view?  That is what this book is about.  The author has his own views but also includes writings from others currently and in the past.  A very interesting read to say the least.  Of course, I listened to the book as an audio book but it would work well in any format.  You can find it on Amazon at:   https://amzn.to/3H6JDdo 

Last but not least, I would like to showcase a new piece of art work before I go. It is pen and ink with a little water color thrown. This one is protected in a recycled traditional frame and glass. It is the third drawing of Jesus of Nazareth in a series of four, except I have given the drawing (like the others in the series) a little bit of a twist. I call them Jesus of Borg or SiFi Jesus or Transhumanist Jesus.

I decided to do these pieces over anger of the Texas GOPs enactment of the draconian anti-abortion law.  I have three adult daughters and while they might not agree on whether it is right or wrong to get an abortion, they all agree that it is “their right” to choose. And I agree with them. So that is how the project started out but it morphed into something a little different. Did you know that there are at least 10,000 different denominations of Christianity in the world. Of course some say this number is much higher but I figure 10,000 is a safe estimate. Knowing this I thought why not make up my own Jesus?! A lot of other people have. So I did. And what I came up with was a tough, but accepting LGBT SiFi Jesus. A Jesus that would assimilate all other Jesuses, even Republican Jesus, into a hive mind and create an accepting and loving collective for all people and all religions. In Star Trek, the Borg are considered the enemy but in my version I have turned it around and made “Jesus of Borg” the good guy, the savior.

Now you might be wondering where “Transhumanist Jesus” comes in to the picture. If you have read this far into the blog then you will see the connection in the above book review. Jesus and Christianity will have to change to keep up with the “Biotech” or risk the fate of all previous mythologies that have become nothing more than footnotes in history.

TRANSHUMANIST JESUS

The frame measures 13.5 inches by 16.5 inches with the picture being 6.5 inches by 9.5 inches.
JESUS OF BORG
JESUS OF BORG 2 or SiFi JESUS

These pieces and other types of art work are for sale and can be found on my Etsy site: https://www.etsy.com/shop/strugglingprotoplasm/edit?ref=seller-platform-mcnav

Well I have come to the end of another blog post and I have usually included in this section something detailing why it might be a good idea to become minimalist. It is good for you and great for the planet. But I think on this blog, I am going to give you a break and just say if your interested and want to learn more about sustainability, minimalism and the steady state economy, please see these sites: https://www.sustain.ucla.edu/what-is-sustainability/ and https://www.theminimalists.com/minimalism/ and https://steadystate.org/

So take care my friends and if you have not gotten vaccinated, then get it done. We all want this “Groundhog Day – Covid – Marry- Go – Round” to end. Until next time Adios!!

May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous…, leading to the most amazing views.” Edward Abbey

Air Quality, Art, Book Review, Colorado, Covid 19, Dogs, Exercise, Fort Collins, Horsetooth Mountain Open Space, Marshall Fire, Minimalism, Pandemics, Space, Trail Running, Wildfire

MUSING FOR FRIDAY 28TH, JANUARY 2022

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“Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.” Aldous Huxley

The above image was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope over a ten day period in 1995. It is called the Hubble Deep Field (HDF). The telescope looked at a very narrow speck of sky, or about 1/30 of the diameter of the full moon, and reveled a baffling number of other galaxy shapes and colors that had never been seen before. Some of these may have formed in the very early universe after the Big Bang. Three years after this observation, a region in the southern hemisphere was imaged in the same way. The similarities between the two regions strengthened the belief that the universe is uniform over a large scale. There are over 3000 objects in the above image. Bluer objects contain young stars and are relatively close, while redder objects contain older stellar populations and are farther away. Image credit: NASA/JPL/STScI Hubble Deep Field Team. If you would like to learn more please see these links: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/pia12110-hubble-deep-field-image-unveils-myriad-galaxies-back-to-the-beginning-of-time and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_Deep_Field

“You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you mad.” Aldous Huxley

The above image is a picture from the Hubble Space Telescope. It is of two galaxies, the big one is NGC 105 and is about 215 million light years away in the constellation Pisces. While it looks like NGC is crashing into a smaller galaxy, this is not the case. The smaller one is much, much further away and is relatively unknown to astronomers. This is a common occurrence in astronomy. One of the best examples are the stars that form the constellations in our night sky. Ancient humans were creative in connecting dots with the stars to establish patterns that looked like animals, gods, goddesses, and heroes. But in reality, these stars are at vastly different distances from Earth, and only appear to form patterns due to a chance alignment to other stars. Two other objects that are present in this photo are pulsating stars called Cepheid variables and supernova explosions. They are both important to astronomers trying to measure the vast distances in space. Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, D. Jones, A. Riess et al.
Acknowledgement: R. Colombari. If you would like to learn more about the above image please see this link: https://esahubble.org/images/potw2201a/

“Words can be like X-rays if you use them properly – they’ll go through anything. You read and you’re pierced.” Aldous Huxley

The above image is of the galaxy NGC 976 and is from the Hubble Space Telescope. This spiral galaxy lies around 150 million light-years from the Milky Way in the constellation Aries. The space based Hubble telescope was launched in 1990 from the Space Shuttle Discovery. It has made over 1.5 million observations and it allowed the publication of thousands of peer-reviewed scientific papers on its discoveries. Just incredible when you stop and think about it. I am hoping that the James Webb Space telescope will turn out to be as significant as Hubble has been. The acronym NGC in the galaxy name stands for New General Catalogue. It is an astronomical catalogue of deep sky objects compiled by John Louis Emil Dreyer in 1888. There are a total of 7,840 objects in the catalogue now. They are galaxies, star clusters, emission nebulae and absorption nebulae. Credit for image: ESA/Hubble & NASA, D. Jones, A. Riess et al. If you would like to learn more about his image, Hubble and the New General Catalogue, please see these links: https://esahubble.org/images/potw2202a/ and https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/about and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_General_Catalogue

“There are things known and there are things unknown, and in between are the doors of perception.” Aldous Huxley

This galaxy image was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope and is named Messier 94. It is an example of what is known as a spiral galaxy with a starburst ring. These types of galaxies are undergoing a high rate of star formation as compared to other types of galaxies. As an example, our own Milky Way is about 30 times slower than the typical starburst galaxy in star formation. Interestingly the star formation in one of these is so large that it consumes a huge amount of the interstellar gas and thus is consider just a “phase” in the galaxies evolution. The above bright ring, seen encircling the rest of the galaxy is called a “starburst ring.” It is the region of intense star formation. The galaxy is about 16 million light years away in the constellation of the Hunting Dogs or Canes Venatici. It was discovered by Pierre Mechain in 1781 and catalogued by Charles Messier two days later. Image credit: ESA/NASA. If you would like to learn more about the above image or starburst galaxies please see these links: https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/a-hubble-view-of-starburst-galaxy-messier-94 and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messier_94 and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starburst_galaxy

“You build the best possible story from the information available to you and if it is a good story you believe it. Paradoxically it is easier to construct a coherent story when you know little, when there are fewer pieces to fit into the puzzle. Our comforting conviction that the world makes sense, rest on a secure foundation – our almost unlimited ability to ignore our ignorance.” Daniel Kahneman

HEY!! I AM LOOKING AT YOU!! THAT’S WHO!!

If you are reading this then you have continued to survive Covid 19 so far and so have I!! Yea for all of us!! I am still hoping that I can keep saying this for all of next year. I really, really mean that, especially if you are someone who has not gotten your vaccine. Go get it. There is no shame in waiting as long as you did. Just do it like the Nike ad says.

Looking at the numbers on January 6th, it appears, unfortunately, that in the last 30 days (December 6th to January 6th), we have added another 44,000 deaths – for a total of 855 thousand individuals. Up 8,000 individuals from the previous 30 days. In October and November we had started a downward trend but I am guessing the holidays and the advent of the Omicron variant has led to this increase. And of course the deaths are predominantly the unvaccinated. To say this is a senseless and tragic loss of life is an understatement.

The above image has not changed. It shows the top ten states with the most cases and deaths. California still leads the country with Texas trailing by a small margin. Florida is the mystery state. They seem to be reporting their new cases but have not reported more than a few hundred new deaths in the last 90 days. Every other state that has as many new cases as Florida with similar populations, has a significantly higher death count. So what is it with Florida? I am guessing it is due to the economic interests in the state. You want to make things seem rosier than what they actually are so that people will come and spend money. What is the old saying: “It’s nothing personal, it is just business.” The pandemic has defiantly been one of misinformation and incorrect reporting. I am guessing, but I bet the death count in Florida is a lot higher than what is being reported. So you don’t lie about it, you just leave the relevant information out.

By the first week of January new cases really started to sky rocket due to this variant. I don’t think people really wanted to hear this news and continued on as if nothing had changed. But by the middle of the month, we were adding over 800 thousand new case each day and the death count was back into the 2000 per day range. On January 15 total deaths for the US stood at 873 thousand. Or 18,000 new deaths in 9 days (from January 6th). More than 60 thousand deaths from December 6th! Unreal.

The news media has been playing down the Omicron variant as less severe, but that is not the case for the unvaccinated, those over 65, and the immunocompromised. Of course this includes kids that have not been vaccinated or are too young to get vaccinated. Unfortunately, Omicron is just as significant for these populations.

Nation wide we passed the peak of infection for Omicron at the first of January, but the increase in deaths and hospital utilization will not occur until the end of the month.

By the time of publishing, January 28th, the daily death count was well over the 3000 mark, and this includes states that are slow in reporting or fudging their numbers like Florida. So I am guessing that we are much, much higher. We were at 900 thousand total reported deaths at the time of publication. Or 45 thousand deaths in just 22 days. The only good news was that the number of daily new infections was heading in a downward trend. Hopefully we can keep this daily infection numbers headed in that direction.

If you interested in looking at the numbers for yourself, please see this link: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

If you interested in getting a good understanding of what is going on with Covid each week without having to watch the news, check out this link for the Osterholm Update on YouTube: https://youtu.be/FC1G09xkOFc 

And if you don’t want to listen on YouTube you can check out Apple Pod cast. Dr. Michael Osterholm is an American epidemiologist, Regents Professor, and Director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. Dr. Osterholm gives an update each week on where we are with the virus. Really good information directly from the source and not spun by the news media channels.

Ok that was enough about Covid! Time to move on to something much better to talk about! For the most part… Lol. I swear, it is one tragedy after another this year. Oh well, now to get on with it.

The month of December, like November, was another beautiful one for being outdoors here on the Front Range of Colorado. And again it was a very, very mild month. We really did not get any “winter like” weather until the last day of December. And that was not until later in the day.

This picture was taken on December 2nd, 2021 at about 2pm in the afternoon. Here Marvin and I were running in an open space behind Fort Collins called Pineridge Natural Area. This picture of Marvin says it all. I think that the temps that day were in the 60 to 70 degree range. Way too warm for the month of December!
This picture was taken on December 9th, 2021 at about 2pm in the afternoon. Here we were just finish up a walk in the neighborhood. Again, I think that the temps for this day were in the 50 degree range. Marvin with his “serious face” was watching another dog across the street.
This picture was taken on December 13th, 2021 at about 2pm in the afternoon. The temps were down in the 50 to 60 degree range with some clouds so I could run Marvin a little longer without having to worry that he would overheat. Here we are looking North from the Maxwell Natural Area. The lake in the background is Horsetooth Resivor.
This picture was taken on December 16th, 2021 at about 2pm in the afternoon. You are probably wondering where the snow came from since I already said it was a very mild month. Lol. Marvin and I had to go up into the mountains to find it. Here we are in the Roosevelt National Forest close to Cameron Pass, just off highway 14. I think the elevation at this location was about 10,000 feet. Even though there appears to be a lot of snow it really should be a little deeper for December. Never the less, it was a fun day on Snowshoes. And the snow did get better in January.
This picture was taken on December 19, 2021 at about 5:30pm in the evening. It is looking West across a pond in our neighborhood. Besides the beautiful colors reflected off the clouds, you can see Mount Meeker and Longs Peak in the background. They are in Rocky Mountain National Park. The air quality on the Front Range was great for December. There was enough wind to keep the atmosphere clean, so you could see the peaks in the distance. When you look at the above picture, the mountains you are seeing are about 40 miles distant in a straight line. Pretty cool.
This picture was taken on December 25th, 2021 at about 8pm. Happy Holidays from our Fort Collins family to yours!!
This picture was taken on December 27th, 2021 at about 3:30pm in the afternoon. Here Marvin and I were looking West from the top of Horsetooth Mountain Natural Area. While it looks cold, the temps were actually close to 50 degrees. And still no significant snow. Where we were standing is about 7500 feet and you can just see a tiny amount.
Wow! Finally! Lol. This picture was taken December 31st, 2021 at about 4pm in the afternoon. The first significant snowfall for the winter of 2021/22. The very last day of 2021. Crazy. Here Marvin and I were doing some walking in one of the parks.

Now for something that was not so great…

Thinking and writing about the past month of December 2021, I have come to realize that this is the longest dry spell for snow/rain, Janet and I have experienced here in Colorado, so far. We moved here in July of 1987, so almost 35 years ago. It does make me wonder what the future holds in store for citizens along the Front Range in a warming climate. I could have devoted a whole blog post to talking about the devastating fires that occurred in Boulder County on December 30th, 2021. Now called the Marshall Fire. When you think “fire danger” in Colorado, you think mountains and forest fires but this one did not happen in the mountains. It was out on the plains. I did not mention it in the above pictures, but that day I was actually running with Marvin in Horsetooth Mountain Park just west of Fort Collins. The temps were again in the 50 to 60 degree range. There was a high wind warning in effect for all of the Northern Front Range and this included where we were at. The crazy part is that we did not experience any significant wind, maybe 10 to 20 mph at best. While the areas that burned, were hit with 70 to 100 mph wind. I did not even realize there was a significant weather/fire event taking place just 40 miles away, until I heard it on the radio. Crazy. Where Marvin and I were, it was beautiful. Unusually warm, but it made for a beautiful day. Check out the picture below of Horsetooth Mountain Park looking Northeast across Fort Collins and compare it to the bottom two images from Boulder County – same day. Unreal.

This picture was taken on December 30th, 2021 at about 3pm in the afternoon. The day before it snowed. It is looking northeast from Horsetooth Mountain Park. Light winds. Nothing like the gale force winds just 40 miles to the south that fueled the Marshall Fire, destroying more than 990 structures/homes and parts of the towns of Superior, Louisville and unincorporated Boulder County. Just unreal.
This is an image from MAXAR Aerospace. The top panel shows a pre-fire image. The bottom panel is an afternoon image of the same area.
Early evening photo on December 30th, 2021 – provided by Boulder County showing the Marshall Fire. This is only about 40 miles from where I live.

If you did not know about the Marshall Fire on December 30th, 2021 in Boulder County check out this Wikipedia link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021%E2%80%932022_Boulder_County_fires#:~:text=On%20December%2030%2C%202021%2C%20shortly%20before%2010%3A30%20a.m.,permitting%20the%20Federal%20Emergency%20Management%20Agency%20to%20intervene.

There are a lot of reason why the Marshall Fire occurred, but a big contributing factor was how dry and warm it has been in Colorado for several years now. A good article to read on how a “warming climate” created the perfect conditions for the Marshall Fire is this one from the Climate Adaptation Center (CAC): https://www.theclimateadaptationcenter.org/2022/01/10/another-climate-catastrophy-the-boulder-colorado-fire/

It is written by Bob Bunting, who is the Chairman and CEO of the center. The CAC is an independent, non-profit organization headquartered in Sarasota, Florida. Their mantra is that if all carbon emissions stopped tomorrow, the increase in warming will not stop for another 100+ years. So how can we adapt to mitigate the disruptions that are occurring now and in the future. How can we help individuals, business and states adopt practices that will help to protect life and property. Check out this link to learn more about the CAC: https://www.theclimateadaptationcenter.org/about-us/

December was another good month for running and therefore good for reading. Ok – it is listening to audio books. Lol. So, I have a few books I would like to recommend.

The first one is called Real Zen for Real Life, by Bret W. Davis. He is a professor of philosophy and the T.J. Higgins, SJ, chair in philosophy at Loyola University. This is a great lecture series if you are interested in getting a deeper understanding of Zen. The lecture series is from the great courses, but it is much cheaper to get it on Amazon as audio only. The course is divided up into 24 lectures, each covering a different aspect of Zen and what it means to the Western audience. There is a lot of information to unpack so to speak from the lectures and this will be one of those courses I will go back and listen a second time or even a third time. One of the things that I found very helpful in my practice of Zen covered in the lecture series was the idea of “when sitting, ask yourself what are you leaving behind – not what you are getting out of the sitting.” We all have this tendency, myself included, to think we have to be getting something out of whatever we are doing. But in Zen it is the other way around – “What are we leaving behind, letting go of.” Not ignoring it, but inviting the feeling, the emotion, the whatever it is… IN. But after that, you leave it behind, let it go. This course is for both the beginner and the experienced practitioner of Zen. The great Courses Plus ( Now called Wondrium) has a good description of what each lecture covers and can be found here: https://www.wondrium.com/real-zen-for-real-life

Of course you can find the lecture series on Amazon here: https://amzn.to/3GQKCPA

The next book I would like to talk about is another one by Yuval Noah Harari and is called 21 Lessons for the 21st Century. In the last Blog post I reviewed his book called Sapiens. Sapiens is an excellent book and should be required reading for all high school and college students before graduation. His second book is called Homo Deus. This one is his third book in the series. Of course, I listened to the book as an audio book but I am thinking it would work much, much better in traditional format. There is so much provocative information presented that I found myself going back and forth between chapters and listening again and again. While the first two books should be required reading for high school and college students, this one should be required reading for everyone that is in political office or some kind of advisory role. One of my favorite section of the book was his look at world religions. How they all feel they are the one true religion and all others are fictitious at worst or misguided at best. All I could think about is the line from George Carlin, “Someone is going to be disappointed.” Lol. The other part is how the combination of A.I. and Biotech is going to change the world in ways we will have a great deal of trouble wrapping our heads around. The book also looks at history, politics, religion, philosophy and so much more through the lens of how we invent stories to explain our reality, but then betray those very stories when we need to. Lol. A great book and again I think it would work better in traditional format so you can go back and forth between chapters.

Of course you can find it on Amazon at this link: https://amzn.to/3qPovUp

Last but not least, I would like to showcase a new piece of art work before I go. This is the second “Sun Face” in a series I started in October 2021. It is constructed of 3/4 inch plywood and painted with high quality latex paint. Then sealed with a clear latex primer. The sculpture measures about 28 inches by 28 inches by 3 inches deep. Its weight is about 25lbs. They are designed for exterior placement, but if you are putting it outside, I would suggest a protected location. The latex paint, while durable, will gradually fade over time if placed in a location with strong sunlight. And like all paint, it is susceptible to the whims of harsh weather. This one is called “Squished Lego Sun Face 2.”

This piece and other types of art work are for sale and can be found on my Etsy site: https://www.etsy.com/shop/strugglingprotoplasm/edit?ref=seller-platform-mcnav

Well I have come to the end of another blog post! Yea! I hope you enjoyed reading it. Of course before I go, I would like to give my usual spiel about Minimalism. A couple of weeks ago the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) published an article about the record number and record cost of all the weather disasters in 2021. The article is pretty interesting and gives a good picture of how much a warming climate is costing us in lives and dollars. This should be a wake up call to us all. The part that I find fascinating is that we are in the “chaos” of the a changing climate right now. Not 20 years from now. It is actually happening right now.

The original article that contained the above graphic can be found here: https://www.noaa.gov/news/us-saw-its-4th-warmest-year-on-record-fueled-by-record-warm-december?fbclid=IwAR3uRq9xLaNPUMxyuoGKmZImJaeDIga7vB2mrkzL-NIKp9D7prKMCYIsmcE

So with that said, what can we do as individuals about it? How can we start to decrease our carbon footprint? One answer is minimalism. Become more minimalist. Buy less, buy long term, reuse or recycle before buying new. If you in the market for a new car in the next year or two – buy a hybrid or full electric. Cut your meat intake and go plant based. You will reduce your carbon footprint and be healthier in the process. Ride you bike to work or school if possible. Like to travel all the time? Ask yourself why? If you thinking about your next vacation as soon as your back from your current one, maybe it is past time to design a life you don’t need to escape from…

Being minimalist is not all black or all white way of life. There are shades of gray. Minimalism is different for each individual. You choose how much “minimalism” you want in your life and how much you don’t want. It is about understanding what matters most in life and removing the things that do not support the “what matters most part.” It is a way to break free of a rigged consumeristic system. A way to buy time for the planet and bring back the joy we all want and need in our lives.

Ok, ok enough of the soapbox, but if your interested and want to learn more about sustainability, minimalism and the steady state economy, please see these sites: https://www.sustain.ucla.edu/what-is-sustainability/ and https://www.theminimalists.com/minimalism/ and https://steadystate.org/

So take care my friends and if you are have not gotten vaccinated, then get it done. We all want this “Groundhog Day – Covid – Marry- Go – Round” to end. Until next time Adios!!

May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous…, leading to the most amazing views.” Edward Abbey

Air Quality, Art, Book Review, Colorado, Covid 19, Dogs, Economics, Exercise, Fort Collins, Horsetooth Mountain Open Space, Life and Meaning, Minimalism, Pandemics, Psychology, Science, Space, Trail Running

MUSING FOR FRIDAY 31ST, DECEMBER 2021

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HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

“There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep Sea, and music in its roar:
I love not Man the less, but Nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the Universe, and feel
What I can ne’er express, yet cannot all conceal.”

Lord Byron

The above image is a picture of what is called the Flame Nebula or NGC 2024. A nebula is a distinct body of interstellar gas and dust. At one point before telescopes became much bigger and refined, the term was used to describe any diffused astronomical object, including galaxies beyond the Milky Way. A good example of this is the Andromeda galaxy. It was known as the Andromeda Nebula until the early 20th century when Edwin Hubble discovered that the Andromeda “nebula” was outside of our own galaxy, the Milky Way. Up until this point, nebulae were thought to all be in the Milky Way. And that the MW was the only galaxy in the Universe. Hubble discovered that Andromeda was millions of light years from the MW and a galaxy in its own right containing billions of stars. In a sense, Hubble discovered the Universe for humanity. Image credit:  NASA, ESA, and N. Da Rio (University of Virginia); Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America) If you would like to learn more about the Flame Nebula, and Edwin Hubble please check out these links: https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2021/hubble-spots-swirls-of-dust-in-the-flame-nebula and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flame_Nebula and https://www.esa.int/About_Us/ESA_history/Edwin_Hubble_The_man_who_discovered_the_Cosmos

“To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.”

William Blake

This is an image from the Hubble Space telescope. It is what is known as a planetary nebula. The name is a misnomer because they are unrelated to planets. It is thought the usage of the term originated in the 1700s with William Herschel and others. They described these types of nebulae as resembling planets due to their shapes. In reality, they are known as emission nebulae consisting of expanding ionized shells of gas that are ejected from older red giant stars as they become white dwarf’s. A white dwarf is the exposed, naked core of a former red giant star. The above is a picture is NGC 6891 and is located in the constellation Delphinus, the Dolphin. Image credit: NASA, ESA, A. Hajian (University of Waterloo), H. Bond (Pennsylvania State University), and B. Balick (University of Washington); Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America) To learn more about NGC 6891 and planetary nebula, please see these links: https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2021/hubble-s-view-of-planetary-nebula-reveals-complex-structure and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_nebula

“But I don’t want to go among mad people,” Alice remarked.
“Oh, you can’t help that,” said the Cat: “we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.”
“How do you know I’m mad?” said Alice.
“You must be,” said the Cat, “or you wouldn’t have come here.”

Lewis Carroll

This is an image of four different Nebula. The Eagle Nebula, the Omega Nebula, Trifid Nebula and the Lagoon Nebula. In the 1950s, astronomers were able to use the distances of some of the stars in these nebulae to infer the existence of the Sagittarius Arm of our Milky Way Galaxy. At the time, scientist were trying to figure out what kind of galaxy the Milky Way was – i.e. was it a spiral galaxy like Andromeda or something different. This was and still is to some degree a big deal because we are embedded in the Milky Way, so it is hard to know our position and the shape of the galaxy. Plus the fact that the Milky Way is really big, anywhere from 100,000 to 120,000 light years across, 1000 light years thick and containing 400 billion stars. As big as it is, it is only considered a middle weight when compared to other galaxies. New studies have shown that the above Nebulae are part of a substructure in the arm that is angled differently from the rest of the arm. These substructures have been called spurs or feathers and can be found on the arms of other spiral galaxies. Our solar system (including earth) is located about 25,000 light-years from the galactic center and 25,000 light years away from the rim. So if you use the analogy of a vinyl record, we are about half way between the center and the edge of the Milky Way and the MW itself is a barred spiral galaxy with two spiral arms. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech. If you want to learn more please see these links: https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/eagle-omega-nebula-trifid-and-lagoon-four-famous-nebulae and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carina%E2%80%93Sagittarius_Arm and https://phys.org/news/2016-07-earth-milky.html

“Time changes everything except something within us which is always surprised by change.”

Thomas Hardy

The above picture is from Hubble. It shows a barred spiral galaxy called NGC 3568. It lies 57 million light years away in the constellation of Centaurus. It’s first recorded discovery was on April 21st, 1835 by the English astronomer John Herschel. It is more recently famous for a supernova discovery in 2014 by amateur astronomers from the Backyard Observatory Supernova Search in New Zealand. While most astronomical discoveries are the work of professionals, the Backyard Observatory Supernova Search or BOSS is an amateur collaboration of 6 friends from Australia and New Zealand. They are a dedicated amateur astronomy group that have been searching for new supernovae sightings since 2008. Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, M. Sun. If you would like learn more please visit these web sites: https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2021/hubble-views-a-galaxy-with-an-explosive-past and http://www.sci-news.com/astronomy/hubble-image-ngc-3568-10358.html and https://www.bosssupernova.com/

“If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise

If you can dream – and not make dreams your master;
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings – nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a Man, my son!”

Rudyard Kipling

HEY!! I AM LOOKING AT YOU!! THAT’S WHO!!

If you are reading this then you have continued to survive Covid 19 so far and so have I!! And that my friends is a very, very, good thing. I am still hoping that I can keep saying this for all of next year. I really mean that, especially if you have not gotten your vaccine yet.

Looking at the numbers on December 6th it appears that we have added another 36,000 deaths in the last 30 days for a total of 811, 000 individuals just in this country alone. And as big as that number is, it is actually down for the second month in a row. So yes it is terrible, but for the moment, we are heading in the right direction. Over 80 percent of those deaths have been the unvaccinated. What a needless and tragic loss of life. So senseless.

I thought for sure that Texas would surge ahead of California but it is still neck and neck, with Cali pulling ahead by a few hundred more deaths over the last month than Texas. The above picture has not changed. It represents the top 10 states with the most deaths. California is at 1st spot with 75,000 and Michigan is at the 10th spot with 26,000 thousand. Florida is not reporting as much and I wonder if they are actually much higher than 61,000 they say? This has been a pandemic of misinformation besides one caused by a virus. The economic powers that be are in the process of trying to stay afloat and recoup losses sustained since 2020, so it behooves them to make things sound better than they are to bring in those consumer dollars. Of course the virus does not care what you say or do and will go right on causing mayhem, death and disability.

The big news is the new variant called “Omicron.” So far at the middle of the month the mortality and morbidity did not appear as severe as Delta, but the transmissibility was significantly higher. At the middle of the month, the number of new cases per day was in the 150 thousand plus range but by December 22nd and 23rd the forecasted increase with Omicron started to skyrocket as it became the dominate strain in the country. On December 22nd the new positive cases were 236 thousand and on the 23rd it had jumped to 267 thousand. On Friday the 24th, there were 200,000 new case reported but from only 20 states due to the holiday. My guess, the number was closer to 400,000 new infections for Friday. At the end of the day Wednesday, December 30th, the new infections for the day were 572 thousand! Wow!

By the end of the month, we had added another 36,000 deaths for a total of about 847,000 fatalities in the United States. Another 36,000 lives lost in less than 30 days. Most of these were an unnecessary, tragic loss of life due to the unvaccinated. Thousands of individuals that thought it “won’t happen to me” or that it was a big lie. Oh well, what is the saying “You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink.” I am thinking that the number of deaths for next month are going to be dramatically higher due to the Omicron variant, especially for the unvaccinated. Hopefully that will not be the case, but I guess time will tell. If you interested in the numbers please see this link: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/.

If you interested in getting a good understanding of what is going on with Covid each week without having to watch the news, check out this link for the Osterholm Update on YouTube: https://youtu.be/FC1G09xkOFc and if you don’t want to listen on YouTube you can check out Apple Pod cast. Dr. Michael Osterholm is an American epidemiologist, Regents Professor, and Director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. Dr. Osterholm gives an update each week on where we are with the virus.

Well again, enough about Covid!! Let’s move on to something much better to talk about!! And that was the month of November for being outdoors. The weather was simply beautiful here in Colorado with an exceptionally mild month.

The above picture was taken on November 3rd, 2021 at about 2pm in the afternoon. This is looking South East from Horsetooth Mountain Park. It is one of my favorite views in the park. Here I was looking out over the Front Range of Colorado, down towards Denver. The air quality was great and the temps were in the 60 to 70 range. A little too warm for November but nice never the less.

The above picture was also taken on November 3rd, 2021 at about 5pm in the afternoon. After finishing up a little trail running, Marvin and I did a short walk with Janet. We got in the habit of walking two times per day back in the summer when it was abnormally hot for Colorado and there were significant air quality issues from the fires out in California. Even though conditions have gotten a lot better, we decided to continue the practice into the fall. This way I get to go for a run with dog boy and a walk with Janet later in the afternoon after she gets home from work.

The above picture was taken November 5th, 2021 at about 12noon. Here Marvin and I were doing a little in town trail running at the back of Spring Canyon Park, in the Pineridge Open Space. Another beautiful fall day.

The above picture was taken on November 13th, 2021 at about 1pm in the afternoon. Here we are just walking in our Neighborhood. Our youngest daughter was house sitting and decided to walk the owners dog with us – Haley Jo. Marvin always seems happy to have another dog walking with him.

The above picture was taken November 17th, 2021 at about 1pm. Another beautiful trail run in Horsetooth Mountain Park. Here I am looking East across Horsetooth Reservoir and across Fort Collins. I did not have Marvin with me this day. It was way too warm for him and there is very little water access up on the mountain, so he got to stay home with his dog buddy Cash.

The above picture was taken on November 18th, 2021 at about 2pm in the afternoon. It is from the Hewlett Gulch Trail that is just west of Fort Collins off of Highway 14. It is part of the Canyon Lakes Ranger District in the Roosevelt National Forest. I really like this one for the dog due to the water access along most of the trail. Especially with the abnormally higher temperatures that were the norm this year. If your interested in more information about this trail check out this link: https://www.fs.usda.gov/recarea/arp/recreation/recarea/?recid=36779&actid=50

The above picture was taken on November 20th, 2021 at about 3pm in the afternoon. Janet and I were out for our usual daily walk and exploring a downed cottonwood tree when Marvin jumped up on it unexpectedly. Which was a surprise to both of us. With his heavier bone structure, he is not a dog know for his jumping abilities. Lol.

The above image was taken on November 25th, 2021 at about 3pm in the afternoon. Marvin and I were doing a run along the Poudre River Bike trail. It was another warm day for November, so I stopped to let him get a drink out of the river.

This last picture was taken on November 30th, 2021 at about 3pm in the afternoon. Here I was looking Southwest across Horsetooth reservoir from the Fort Collins side. The sun seemed to be at a perfect angle with the clouds for what I think turned out to be a great photo. It was more of a typical fall day in Colorado, with temps in the mid 40s, so Marvin and I got in a long trail run along the lake.

While the month was unseasonably warm and dry for us in November it did make for some great days of running, walking, biking and just being outdoors. We did miss the early season snow a little bit but not too much. Lol

Like October, I did get a few more books and “lecture courses” finished up during the month. The first one I would like to talk about is a lecture course from the Great Courses website called “Years that Changed History: 1215” taught by Professor Dorsey Armstrong, PhD. She is an Associate Professor of English and medieval Literature at Purdue University. I watched this lecture series in video format but it would work as well in audio only. (It is a lot cheaper in the audio only version).

I got this course out of curiosity when I was reading about the importance of the Magna Carta and how it is consider the basis for the creation of the US Constitution. In the process of looking up more information on it, I came across this course. To my surprise, there were many different events that happen in and around the year 1215, not just the signing of the Magna Carta by King John. This year and the years around it, turned out to have pivotal turning points in world history.

Without giving too much away, the course covers the signing of the Magna Carta, the meeting of the Church’s Forth Lateran Council, the crusades, and the rise of Genghis Khan, to just name a few. Not only do you get a look into what was going on in Europe, the Middle East and Asia, but Dr. Armstrong also gives a look at what was also happening in the rest of the world (Japan, Africa, and Mesoamerica) at the same time. I had no “idea” is to put it mildly. This is one of those lecture series that I will listen to a second time. The course is divided up into 24-thirty minute lectures for a total of about 12.5 hours of listening. Another bonus is that Dr. Armstrong has a good sense of humor when presenting the material and makes what could be a dry subject very entertaining. You can find the audio version on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3qk82WC and if you prefer the video version, you can find it here at the Great Courses: https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/years-that-changed-history-1215

If you want to learn more about Professor Armstrong please see this link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorsey_Armstrong

The next book I would like to give a recommendation on is called “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind” by Yuval Noah Harari. Let me start off saying that this is a great book. It is one of those that I will listen to a second time or reference back to. It is that good. The book was published in 2015 and is just as relevant today as it was when it was first published. The book is what the title says it is. It is a brief history of humankind from about 100,000 years ago to the present. In the process of presenting the story, Dr. Harari integrates history and science in a way that makes you ponder the currently accepted narratives found in society today. It is one of those books that give a fascinating look at how humanity became what it is – the dominate species on the planet. This should be required reading in all colleges. Heck, it should be required reading for High School Seniors before they graduate.

This book was very easy to listen to. Dr. Harari’s prose was smooth and concise. It made for a very enjoyable experience. I listened to the book as an audio book, but it would probably work even better in traditional format so that you can reference previous material much easier. There is a lot of information presented and I found myself re-listening to sections to help with digestion.

If you would like to learn more about this amazing author, Yuval Noah Harari, please check out this link: Yuval Noah Harari – Wikipedia

Of course you can find this book on Amazon: https://amzn.to/32tfaHR

The next book I would like to talk about is called: “80/20 Running, by Matt Fitzgerald.” Since I run a lot, I am always looking for books on running and especially audio books that I can listen to while running.

This is a great book to get you started in the principles (the whys and how’s) of doing most of your runs at lower intensity and only 20 percent at the at higher intensity levels. I have been seriously running now for about 9 years and I had been exposed to this idea before from Joe Friel’s book “Fast after 50.” (another great book). What I liked best about the 80/20 book is that it explained, in easy to understand detail, the importance of slowing down a bit in training to help improve overall performance. I know it sounds counter intuitive, but it does work. Now don’t get me wrong, you still have to do a fair amount of the much harder intensity part, but not all the time. When you are training with out a coach to watch your progress, there is a tendency to get in a rut with moderate effort being the main workout all the time. And this just wears you down. Or you put in too much high intensity training and get injured. Either way this is counter productive.

I listened to this book as an audio book but it would probably work better in traditional format, especially if you are new to running or a seasoned runner but want to take it up a notch or two.

Of course you can find this on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3moFvOu

I also recommend Joe Friel’s book “Fast after 50” – especially if you are over 50 like me! Lol. You can find it on Amazon too: https://amzn.to/3Hfu03S

Last but not least, I would like to showcase a new piece of art work before I go. I started a “Sun Face” series in October and this is the first one of the series that I have finished. It is constructed of 3/4 inch plywood and painted with high quality latex paint. Then sealed with a clear latex primer. The sculpture measures about 28 inches by 28 inches by 3 inches deep. Its weight is about 25 lbs. This one is rated for interior or exterior placement, but if you are putting it outside, I would suggest a protected location. The latex paint, while durable, will gradually fade over time if placed in a location with strong sunlight. And like all paint, it is susceptible to the whims of harsh weather. I call this one “Squished Lego Sun Face.”

SQUISHED LEGO SUN FACE

These piece and other types of art work are for sale and can be found on my Etsy site: https://www.etsy.com/shop/strugglingprotoplasm/edit?ref=seller-platform-mcnav

Wow! I have come to the end of another blog post! Yea! I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it. Before I go, I would like to touch again on the idea of becoming minimalist. This past month I was reminded of the importance of this idea when I came across an art installation post on FB that I had forgotten about called “Can’t Help Myself.” The piece was done by Sun Yuan and Peng Yu. It was first seen at the Guggenheim Museum in 2016.

You can see it at work in this YouTube Video: https://youtu.be/ZS4Bpr2BgnE If you want to learn more about the artists check out their inks: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Yuan_&_Peng_Yu and http://www.artnet.com/artists/sun-yuan-and-peng-yu/

It is of a large robotic arm that is constantly trying to save it’s hydraulic fluid that is colored red like blood. The arm makes other movements that give it anthropomorphic (human like) characteristics. The robot is in a losing battle trying to contain the very fluid that allows it to move and hence live. It is designed to lose a little more each day than it can recollect and so eventually it will cease movement and die (it bleeds out). I believe the robot finally came to rest in 2019. There are several interpretations of what the artists meant with the work, but the one that resonated with me the most is that it is a metaphor on modern life. On how we kill ourselves and others in the pursuit of money and profit in an effort to just keep living. And that the system is set up by others to keep us enslaved to the system so that the majority of profit goes to the wealthiest of the wealthy.

Here we are working and working, spending the best years of our lives, playing the game that the richest people in the world have designed. Trapped and slowly drowning with a growing list of responsibilities, debt, and expectations – combined with decreasing pay in relation to inflation and free time for exploration. And where does it all end? In death… It all ends in death. So you might find that interpretation depressing and I do too, but relevant and fitting.

So how do we combat such an overwhelming and fixed system? Well, if you have read my previous blog posts, you know what I am going to say, become “Minimalist.” It is really the only way on a personal and individual scale to combat a rigged consumeristic system. It is something that we can all do to fight back against the current order. When I first heard about the idea of minimalism I thought of a monk living in a monastery, bare walls, owning nothing, eating the same gruel each and everyday, etc.… But in reality this is not the case, though I guess if you wanted to do this you could. Lol.

Minimalism is different for each individual. You choose how much “minimalism” you want in your life and how much you don’t want. It is about understanding what matters most in life and removing the things that do not support the “what matters most part.” It is a way to break free of a rigged system. A way to start on the path of bringing back the happiness and joy we all want and need in our lives.

Ok, ok enough of the soapbox, but if your interested and want to learn more about sustainability, minimalism and the steady state economy, please see these sites: https://www.sustain.ucla.edu/what-is-sustainability/ and https://www.theminimalists.com/minimalism/ and https://steadystate.org/

So take care my friends and if you have not gotten vaccinated, then get it done. We all want this “Groundhog Day – Covid – Marry – Go – Round” to end. Until next time Adios!!

“May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous…, leading to the most amazing views.” Edward Abbey

Air Quality, Art, Book Review, Colorado, Covid 19, Dogs, Economics, Exercise, Fort Collins, Minimalism, Pandemics, Science, Science Fiction, Space

MUSINGS FOR FRIDAY 26TH, NOVEMBER 2021

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“We are all just a car crash, a diagnosis, an unexpected phone call, a newfound love, or a broken heart away from becoming a completely different person. How beautifully fragile are we that so many things can take but a moment to alter who we are forever?”

Samuel Decker Thompson

This view from the International Space Station at an orbit of 274 miles shows a beautiful view of an aurora. While most auroras are often seen near the poles, they can appear at lower latitudes due to large coronal mass ejections from the sun. Other names for this phenomena are polar lights, northern lights, the aurora borealis, etc… These displays of light occur when charged particles from the sun strike atoms in the Earth’s atmosphere and temporarily move electrons to higher-energy orbits, further away from the nucleus. Then when the electrons moves back to a lower- energy orbit, they release a particle of light or photon. If you would like to learn more, please see these links: https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/behold-an-aurora-over-the-southern-skies and https://www.nasa.gov/topics/shuttle_station/features/20110917-aurora.html and https://earthsky.org/earth/what-causes-the-aurora-borealis-or-northern-lights/

“Believe in your ability to become something great, but never allow yourself to believe that you already are.”

Samuel Decker Thompson

The above image from Hubble shows “globules” of interstellar gas free floating in space. You usually cannot see them but when new stars ignite, their intense ultraviolet radiation can ionize the cloud’s hydrogen and create a large, hot bubble of ionized gas. The name for these are “Free-floating Evaporating Gaseous Globules” or “frEGGs.” This image is also a picture of two giant stars. The one on the left is a giant O-type star and is very rare. They are known to be the hottest in the Universe. The one on the right is a massive supergiant B-type star. The frEGGs and stars seen in this picture are in a part of the Northern Coalsack Nebula. In popular media, the Coalsack Nebula is mentioned and used many times, Star Trek the original series, the movie Blue Lagoon, the animated series Futurama, the movie The Chronicles of Riddick and several books. If your interested to learn more please see these links: https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/spotted-by-hubble-dark-star-hatching-freggs and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evaporating_gaseous_globule and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coalsack_Nebula

“You haven’t truly learned the value of life until you’ve looked into the eyes of a loved one at the very moment they drifted away from it.”

Samuel Decker Thompson

This image was taken by the NASA’s Juno spacecraft. Juno was launched on August 5th, 2011 as part of the New Frontiers program. The New Frontiers program was developed to explore and understand more about our own solar system. The Juno’s mission is to measure Jupiter’s composition, gravitational and magnetic field, and polar magnetosphere, among other things. On it’s 36th low pass over Jupiter, it captured the view of the cloud bands and swirls in the planet’s mid-southern latitudes. The dark spot is a vortex that is roughly 250 miles in diameter or 400km. This image was actually created by a citizen scientist named Brian Swift using raw footage from the spacecraft. Image data: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS. Image processing: Brian Swift © CC BY. If you would like to learn more, please check these links: Mocha Swirls in Jupiter’s Turbulent Atmosphere | NASA and Juno (spacecraft) – Wikipedia and https://www.nasa.gov/planetarymissions/newfrontiers.html

“The humans who have the most profound impact upon the lives of those around them are not the ones who buy the greatest gifts, they are not the ones with money and power, and they are not the ones with all the great connections. Instead, we must learn that those who will always make the biggest difference in a life are simply the ones who consistently take the time to show they care, even when it would be so much easier for them not to.”

Samuel Decker Thompson

This is an image of what is know as a remnant of a Type 1a supernova. The red colored ribbon like structures are strands of hot gas that were created by the death of a white dwarf star and subsequent explosion. It is officially known as DEM L249 and is located in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). The LMC is a satellite dwarf galaxy of the Milky Way. The remnant is approximately 160,000 light years away in the constellation of Mensa. The image was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. Image credit: NASA, ESA, and Y. Chou (Academia Sinica, Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics); Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America) If you would like to learn more please see these links: https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2021/hubble-captures-the-shredded-remains-of-a-cosmic-explosion and http://www.sci-news.com/astronomy/hubble-type-ia-supernova-remnant-dem-l249-10253.html and https://www.space.com/hubble-telescope-white-dwarf-supernova-image

“If someone isn’t going to love you for who you are, no matter what you do, no matter how hard you try, then find someone who will. You can’t waste away your beautifully precious life trying so desperately to be good enough for someone else. You need a love who always makes you feel you are good enough just as you are.”

Samuel Decker Thompson

This Hubble nebula image is an example of what is know as a “super-bubble.” In the upper central region there is a dark, starry gap. The hole is 250 light-years wide and it is not fully understood why it is there in the first place. But some believe that the hole was created by stellar winds expelled by massive stars in the bubble’s interior or by the titanic explosion of stars in the nebula. The nebula is named N44 and is filled with glowing hydrogen gas, dust, massive stars and many populations of stars of different ages. The nebula is located about 160 to 170 thousand light years away. It is located in LMC (Large Magellanic Cloud) and is about 1000 light years across. Image credit: NASA, ESA, V. Ksoll and D. Gouliermis (Universität Heidelberg), et al.; Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America). If you interested in more information please see these links: https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2021/mysterious-superbubble-hollows-out-nebula-in-new-hubble-image and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N44_(emission_nebula)

“If the brutal callousness of this world still hasn’t broken you at least a little bit, then you might be part of the problem.”

Samuel Decker Thompson

Interested in who Samuel Decker Thompson is? Check out this link: https://www.facebook.com/ADudeWritingPoetry/?pnref=story and https://samueldeckerthompson.tumblr.com/

HEY!! I AM LOOKING AT YOU!! THAT’S WHO!!

If you are reading this then you have continued to survive Covid 19 so far and so have I!! And that my friends is a very, very, good thing for all of us. I am still hoping that I can keep saying this for the rest of the year and the next. I really, really mean that, especially if you have not gotten your vaccine yet.

Looking at the numbers on November 6th it appears that we have added another 48,000 deaths (775,000 total) in the last 30 days?! While this is down 10,000 from the previous 30 days – I still find the numbers hard to fathom, it is just unreal. Imagine prior to the pandemic if we would have had an event that killed this same number of people in 30 days?! What would have been the media’s reaction? What would have been the government’s reaction? Oh well, the economic forces that drive the world seem not to care and life goes on or doesn’t for some.

Texas appears to be headed to the number one spot for deaths in the country due to Covid. They are only a few 100 deaths away from topping California. Florida is in third place, followed by New York, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Illinois, New Jersey, Ohio and Michigan for the top ten. Of course my question to all of this will be how high will it go?

Some want to say the pandemic is waning but I think that this is a little premature. Yes the numbers are dropping in the United States but we are not the entire world. There are millions, upon millions who have no access to vaccines even though they want them. This will give fuel to the Covid fire for a while and the subsequent threat of new variants.

On a much better note, it has now been about 11 months since I got the initial two doses of the Pfizer Vaccine for Covid and 3 months since I got the booster shot and there does not seem to be any side effects. Yea!

And the Pfizer vaccine has now been approved for kids 5 to 11 years old. This will give potential protection to 28 million children in the United States alone and allows providers to begin the process as soon as possible!

Another bit of good news is the potential approval of two new oral antivirals for Covid that appear to be highly effective in preventing severe disease. This first one is from Merck and Co, the second one is from Pfizer.

By the middle of the month we had climbed to 788 thousand deaths, that added another 13,000 give or take a few for the mid-month total. Texas was still neck and neck with California. And Florida had topped the 60,000 mark for deaths. My home states of Colorado had started to drop after significant increases in Covid cases over the last few months. But at the middle of the month we were down to less than 100 ICU beds available in the entire states and FEMA / DOD assistance was requested by the Governor to help with hospital staffing!

On a better note the the FDA approved the 3rd shot of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccine for all adults over the age of 18! Yea!

By the time of publishing on Friday 26th, 2021 we were right at the 800,000 mark for deaths due to Covid. With most of the recent deaths due to the unvaccinated. And this my friends is a needless waste. Most of all of these were preventable. Oh well – what is the old saying? “You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him or her drink.” Covid will burn through the unvaccinated, so expect more of this carnage. And that is just the way it is going to be.

Well again, enough about Covid! Time to move on and talk about something that is a lot better. And that was the month of October for being outdoors. It was beautiful and the air quality was fantastic. Can I say that again… Yes I can! The air quality was fantastic here on the Front Range of Colorado! Yea!

The above picture was taken on October 3rd, 2021 at about 8pm in the evening. A lot of our walks with Marvin are divided up into two parts. This started as a way to beat the heat and maximized air quality but it has worked out in some unexpected ways too. Marvin seems to do much better with two shorter walks than one long one and it allows Janet and I to get in at least one walk together each day.

The above picture was taken October 5th at about 3pm in the afternoon. I was riding my bike on this day. Colorado can be a bikers dream at times. Especially in the fall when you get cool, crisp windless days. Perfect bicycling weather. This picture is looking North West on the Poudre River. You can just see the leaves starting to turn.

The above picture was taken on October 8th, 2021 at about 12:20 in the afternoon. Here I am looking West by Southwest toward the Nokhu Crags and Cameron Pass. There was already a little bit of snow on them. In this picture Marvin and I were just below Montgomery Pass. Getting a little more hiking at elevation before the snow settles in.

The above picture was taken October 12th, 2021 at about 11:45am. This is in our own neighborhood. The combination of warm temperatures and lower wind speeds really created some beautiful leaf viewing in Fort Collins.

The above picture was taken on October 13th, 2021 at about 2:30pm in the afternoon. This is one of my favorite views from Horse Tooth Mountain Park. It is looking South towards Denver. Just another beautiful day on the Front Range.

The above picture was taken on October 15th, 2021, at about 6pm in the afternoon. The vibrancy of leaf color was incredible this year. We did not have much in the way of significant storms for October, so the leaves stayed on the trees longer.

The above two pictures were taken October 18th, 2021 at about 11am in the morning, in the open space areas behind Fort Collins. The top picture is of Janet and me and the bottom one is of my two oldest daughters, Kayla and Jean-Marie. Of course the dog pictured in the top one is Marvin and the dog pictured in the lower one is Kayla’s dog named Cash.

The above picture was taken on October 25th, 2021 at about 11:30am in the morning. It is looking West across a small pound at one of the dams that holds in Horsetooth Reservoir. I think that I could have made this whole section about leaf color this year. Pretty amazing.

The last picture was taken on October 29th, 2021, at about 6:30pm. It is of Janet and Marvin on our evening walk. Here we are in one of the many parks located in Fort Collins. We are lucky in that we don’t have to drive any where to get to most of these because they can be accessed by biking / walking trails. I truly consider myself fortunate in that we live in a city that has taken significant steps to insure this access over the years. The city I grew up in did not have anything like this kind of bicycle / pedestrian infrastructure. I have to ask myself what if all cities had a program like Fort Collins? How would that affect our health care system? I am guessing that giving people the access to get out and exercise would lower our health care cost significantly. We get so busy in our lives with all the day to day chores so to speak, that getting out to exercise, gets placed on the back burner. So eliminating a big obstacle to outdoor exercise (difficult access) might get more people out and walking. And this would most undoubtedly lead to an improvement in their overall health. Could something, dare I say, so simple, be world changing?! Maybe.

During the month of October I finished up several books that I feel are worth a review and a recommendation. The first one I would like to talk about is “Saving Us: A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World” by Katharine Hayhoe. Let me start by saying that this is not your typical climate book in that it does not really go into great detail about the science of climate change. And believe it or not I think that is a good thing. The author Katharine Hayhoe is an atmospheric scientist and professor of political science at Texas Tech University. She is also an Evangelical Christian. Let me say that again, she is an Evangelical Christian that is telling the world that climate change is real… So that piece right there is enough that you should want to read it. Katharine’s message in the book is “How to talk to people about Climate Change.” She gives numerous examples in her own life in which she had to find ways to connect with Conservatives on climate issues. By telling her own story she presents a frame work in which the rest of us can connect with others not only on the validity of climate science but other sensitive topics as well. I listened to this book as an audio book but it would work well in any format. Of course you can find it on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3FzTk3T

If you would like to learn more about Katharine please see this link: http://www.katharinehayhoe.com/

The next one I would like to talk about is called “Work: A Deep History, from the Stone Age to the Age of Robots” by James Suzman. I got this book after quitting health care this past summer. I had reached a point that I was not able to provide the quality care I did in the past due hospital constraints on staffing related to the pandemic. The transition from being in health care for 40 years to quitting raised some interesting questions.

A few for me, before I purchased the book, were how did we get to our current “work” system. Not just in health care but in all of life. Have you ever wondered who made up the rules? How have they changed over time? Why are we so willing to sacrifice our lives for a little bit of extra money? Why do we need work to feel fulfilled? Etc… So when I looked up the author, Dr. James Suzman (he is an anthropologist) I thought this guy might give me the answers or at the very least steer me in the right direction. Let me say I was not disappointed. You not only get a broad history of work over the ages, but also how it has been changed by technological development over time. I found the parts about the hunter/gather tribes very interesting. Especially the idea about how they were able to meet their needs with very little effort in some circumstances, leaving the rest of the day to leisure time. (Working a lot less than we do in modern society) I listened to this book as an audio book, but I found myself going back and re-listening to sections. So it might work better in traditional format. Either way it is a great book. Of course you can find it on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3cGWNkx

If you interested about the author please check out this link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Suzman and https://amzn.to/3nCshyx

The next one is an old one but a good one and if you have not read it… This is one, you need to add to your reading list. It is called “Silent Spring by Rachel Carson.” One of my college degrees is in Wildlife Biology with a minor in Environmental Science, and I am ashamed to say that I had never read this pivotal book on the state of the environment in the 1950s and 60s. It was originally published in 1962, the year I was born. So 59 years later I felt it was about time.

Let me say that I had to listen to the book in short sections – it was that disturbing to me. Carson eloquently tells the story of the wide spread use of insecticides / herbicides and their devastating consequences on other living organism in the environment, including humans. Each time I listened to a section of the book I came away with the question “How the hell did we not all die due to this rampant and blatant over use of these chemicals.” This is truly the book that sounded the alarm and woke up Americans to what was happening right in their own backyards. Now, some might think that the book is not relevant today but I would have to disagree. Case in point – Back in 2018 there was talk in the Trump administration to bring back DDT, one of the worst pesticides, in Carson’s book. Even though it had been banned for decades for the adverse effects on wildlife, including humans, the “ideocracy” was so prevalent in that administration there was a “thought” to let it come back.

I listened to the book as an audio book but it would work well in any format. And of course you can find it on Amazon: https://amzn.to/2ZdU27k

If you want to learn more about Rachel Carson please see this link: Rachel Carson, The Life and Legacy

The last one I would like to recommend is a piece of Science Fiction by Arthur C. Clarke called “Childhood’s End.” This book was written in the 1950s. Even so the story is as relevant today as it was back then. There was even a miniseries on the SiFi channel back in 2015 (I have not watched it). To say the book is thought provoking is a little bit of an understatement – And this is the main reason I am giving it a recommendation. But, let me say right off, I found it a little cynical and bleak. I feel that some of this darkness in the story line has to come from the Cold War era. After all, we are all a product of the times we live in and Clarke was not immune. Due to this, some are going to like the book a lot and some are not, because of the pessimism in the story. To be honest, I liked the book but it was not one of my Wow favorites. When it comes down to the wire so to speak, the story is more of analytical look at humanity and what the future could be. I listened to the book as an audio book but it would work well in any format. Of course you can find it on Amazon: https://amzn.to/32xrw1V

If you would like to learn more about Arthur C. Clarke please see this link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_C._Clarke

Well, again last but not least, I would like to showcase a couple of pieces of art work before I go. They are pen and ink with a little water color thrown in – drawings of Jesus of Nazareth, except I have given them a little more of my own personal interpretation. I call them Jesus of Borg or LGBT SiFi Jesus. Now if you are not a Star Trek fan you might not know who the Borg are in the series. But in a nutshell they are cybernetic organisms linked in a hive mind called “The Collective.” They are known to assimilate others into their collective whether they want it or not. If you are interested check out this link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borg

I decided to do these pieces over anger of the Texas GOPs enactment of the draconian anti-abortion law.  I have three adult daughters and while they might not agree on whether it is right or wrong to get an abortion, they all agree that it is “their right” to choose. And I agree with them. So that is how the project started out but it morphed into something a little different. Did you know that there are at least 10,000 different denominations of Christianity in the world. Of course some say this number is much higher but I figure 10,000 is a safe estimate. Knowing this I thought why not make up my own Jesus?! A lot of other people have. So I did! And what I came up with was a bad ass LGBT SiFi Jesus. A Jesus that would assimilate all other Jesuses, even Republican Jesus, into a hive mind and create an accepting and loving collective for all people and all religions. In Star Trek, the Borg are considered the enemy but in my version I have turned it around and made “Jesus of Borg” the good guy, the savior.

This drawing is done in pen an ink with a little water color thrown in and is protected with a traditional picture frame and glass. It measures approximately 12 inches wide by 15 inches tall.

“Jesus or Borg”

The next one is done in pen and ink with a little water color thrown in but instead of being protected in traditional frame and glass it is mounted to painted white board and coated with Mod Podge. It measures approximately 11 inches wide by 14 inches tall. When hanging it is about 22 inches tall.

“Jesus or Borg #2”

These pieces and others are for sale and can be found on my Etsy site: https://www.etsy.com/shop/strugglingprotoplasm/edit?ref=seller-platform-mcnav

Wow, I have come to the end of another blog post!! I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it. Before I go, I would like to talk some about the COP26 climate summit. It ended about a week or so ago and now, we all wait and see if the world’s countries implement the commitments they have made. Hopefully it will happen.

One of the things that I have been looking forward to is the increase in the use of electric cars. Personally, we already own a Toyota Prius Prime that is a gas hybrid and it is fantastic for driving around town. If you start off fully charged you rarely run out of battery juice. Over the last few years this has greatly decreased our gas use and that is a very good thing. Especially with prices as high as they are right now. I am putting off buying any new vehicles for now unless they are fully electric or a gas / diesel hybrid. There is just something about not having to be dependent on filling up at the pump each week that is very satisfying.

So if everyone switched to EVs will that save the planet?! Simple answer is NO. The COP26 climate summit might be one of the last chances to head off a warming environment but electric vehicles (EVs), as much as I like them, will not get us there. EVs are still cars and trying to sell the public that once they switch to an EV, then all will be good – is a disservice in the least and an out right lie at the worst. In past blog posts I have talked about being minimalist and if we want to save the human world then I am going to make that same case again. Believe it or not becoming more minimalist is right in accord with decreasing our carbon footprints.

Some that were at the conference feel that the politicians did not really hit the nail on the head so to speak. EVs are still cars and as cars they will create the same issues that have led to an unstainable lifestyle in our cities and urban areas. They make it possible to put greater and greater distances between the places we live, work, shop and play. Developing land into parking lots, shopping malls, low-density housing, new roads, etc… uses incredible amounts of limited resources. It is not an efficient use of water, sewerage, electricity and public transportation. And selling EVs as a way to keep the status quo is not the answer.

So what is the answer(s)? The answer or answers are to bring all the different land uses closer together to make it possible to live, work, shop and play in your own neighborhood so to speak. It is about biking and walking access. It is about a more robust public transportation system. It is about creating a lifestyle in which the emphasis is not on “more stuff” but on improvement of self. It is about becoming minimalist. Life on a warming planet will have to change if we want to survive. Why not make it something for the better.

Ok, ok enough of the soapbox, but if your interested and want to learn more about sustainability, minimalism and the steady state economy, please see these sites: https://www.sustain.ucla.edu/what-is-sustainability/ and https://www.theminimalists.com/minimalism/ and https://steadystate.org/

So take care my friends and if you have not gotten vaccinated, then get it done. We all want this “Groundhog Day – Covid – Marry – Go – Round” to end. Until next time Adios!!

“May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous…, leading to the most amazing views.” Edward Abbey

Air Quality, Art, Book Review, Colorado, Covid 19, Dogs, Economics, Exercise, Fort Collins, Minimalism, Pandemics, Science, Space, Trail Running

MUSINGS FOR FRIDAY 29TH, OCTOBER 2021

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“Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.” Douglas Adams

The above image show two galaxies that are about 100 million light years from earth. The lower one is named NGC 5953 and the upper one is called NGC 5954. They are both spiral galaxies. The reason they look a little different is their orientation in relation to the earth. Together they are known as Arp 91. The image was captured by the Hubble Space Telescope. These two are located in the constellation Serpens in the northern hemisphere. They were first discovered on April 17th, 1784 by the German-born astronomer William Herschel. They are a great example of galactic interaction due to each others gravity. Astronomers believe that collisions between spiral galaxies are common and lead to the formation of elliptical galaxies. The time scale that this takes place is over hundreds of millions of years. Image credit:  ESA/Hubble & NASA, J. Dalcanton; Acknowledgment: J. Schmidt. If you want to learn more about these two please check out there links: Hubble Detects a Dangerous Dance | NASA and http://www.sci-news.com/astronomy/arp-91-interacting-galaxies-10128.html and Serpens – Wikipedia

“A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely fool proof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.” Douglas Adams

This is an artist’s conception of what a “Rogue Planet” might look like. These planets are called by various names: an interstellar, a nomad, a free-floating, an unbound, an orphan, a wandering planet, a starless planet, or a sunless planet. They are interstellar objects of planetary mass and are floating in free space. Not attached to any planetary system or star. Many in the astronomy field believe that there may be more than we realize but up until recently our planet hunting techniques have not been able to detect them very well. Currently the best way is what is know as a MOA or Microlensing Observations in Astrophysics. This survey scanned the central bulge of our galaxy using the 5.9 foot or 1.8 meter telescope at Mount John University Observatory in New Zealand. The researches recorded 474 incidents of microlensing, ten of which were possible Jupiter size planets. From this observation it is thought that there are two Rogue Planets for every star in the Milky Way. NASA plans to gather more data about Rogue Planets with the launch of the Nancy Grace Roman Telescope in the mid-2020s. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech. If you interested in more information please see these links: https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/a-jupiter-like-rogue-planet-wanders-alone-in-space and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microlensing_Observations_in_Astrophysics and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogue_planet and https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/the-nancy-grace-roman-space-telescope

“A learning experience is one of those things that says, You know that thing you just did? Don’t do that.” Douglas Adams

This is an image of the planet Neptune and was taken by the Voyager 2 space craft in August of 1989. In this view you can see the storm in Neptune’s atmosphere called the “Great Dark Spot.” Astronomers discovered Neptune in September of 1846 by using mathematical calculations of it’s predicted position and a telescope. This is the 8th planet in our solar system and the fourth-largest by diameter. It is about 17 earth masses. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech. If you would like to learn more please see this link: https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/discovering-neptune and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neptune

“The quality of any advice anybody has to offer has to be judged against the quality of life they actually lead.” Douglas Adams

This is an image captured by the Hubble Space Telescope of the galaxy called NGC 1052-DF2. It made big news in 2019 because researchers were able to ascertain that this galaxy contains almost no dark matter. It was first discovered in 2015 by the dragonfly telescope array. To refresh your memory dark matter is a hypothetical form of invisible matter or substance that typically dominates the makeup of galaxies. It is thought that 85% of the matter in the universe is dark matter. So to find a galaxy without any was a very big deal to say the least. Dark matter is called dark because it does not appear to interact with the electromagnetic field, which means it does not absorb, reflect or emit electromagnetic radiation of any kind. Therefore it is very difficult to detect. ( It is thought to be there or not there by a variety of astrophysical observations, including gravitational effects that cannot be explained by accepted theories of gravity unless more matter is present than can be seen. ) Because researchers did not find it here in this galaxy it makes it more likely that it is real and not less. A second galaxy with very little dark matter was found in that same area and named DF4. This discovery created a new class of galaxies called ultra-diffuse galaxies (UDGs). They are as big as our Milky Way but have between 100 to 1000 times fewer stars, making them appear fluffy and translucent. Image credit: NASA, ESA, and P. van Dokkum (Yale University) If you would like to learn more please see these links: https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/a-ghostly-galaxys-lack-of-dark-matter and https://www.keckobservatory.org/df2-df4/ and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_matter and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonfly_Telephoto_Array

“The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well, on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be.” Douglas Adams

This is an image of what is know as a supernova remnant. The image was created with the Hubble Space Telescope and is denoted N 63A. It is located in a part of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). The LMC is a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way and is located about 160,000 light years away. N 63A is the remains of a massive star that exploded and ejected it gaseous layers out into space. This picture is a color representation of data taken in 1997 and 2000 with Hubble’s Wide Field Planetary Camera 2. Color filters were used to show light emitted by oxygen (shown in blue), hydrogen (shown in green) and sulfur (shown in red). Image credit: NASA/ESA/HEIC and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA). If you would like to learn more about the above image please visit these links: https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/like-monsters-in-the-sky and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_Magellanic_Cloud and https://esahubble.org/news/heic0507/

“Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-two million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.” Douglas Adams

Douglas Noel Adams was an author, screen writer, essayist, humorist, satirist and dramatist. He was the author of the famous book: “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” which sold more than 15 million copies around the world. To learn more about this talented individual who died way too soon please see this link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Adams Photo credit by Michael Hughes from Berlin, Germany

HEY!! I AM LOOKING AT YOU!! THAT’S WHO!! LOLOLOLOLOLO

If you are reading this then you have continued to survive Covid 19 so far and so have I!! And that my friends is a very, very, good thing for all of us. I am still hoping that I can keep saying this for the rest of the year and the next. I really mean that, especially if you are still on the fence about getting vaccinated.

What can I say, the virus is back and it is mainly a virus of the unvaccinated. I started this months blog post on October 6th and when I checked the numbers I was saddened to learn that we added 58,000 deaths in the last 30 days for a total of 727,000. (September 6th to October 6th)

The month before it was 36,000 and the month before that, about 20,000 and in June it was 9,000. Can you see the pattern? Each month starting towards the end of June we exponentially added more and more infections and deaths. A total of about 115,000 deaths between June 6th to October 6th. Unreal. Again my question will be: How high will it go?

It has now been about 10 months since I got the initial two doses of the Pfizer Vaccine for Covid and 2 months since I got the booster shot and there does not seem to be any side effects. It sounds like the booster shot is going to eventually be recommended to everyone 12 years and older here in the United States. I am not sure why the CDC and the FDA have been dragging there feet on this but other countries like Israel ( 12 and older) and the UK ( 50 and older) have already made this jump. In Israel you are not considered fully vaccinated until you have had the third shot. Interesting to say the least.

By the middle of the month, October 15th, we were at 744 thousand deaths or another 17 thousand deaths in just 9 days. Truly this just seems unreal when I think about it. Why is there not outrage, sorrow and significant concern on a daily basis in the political arena, the media, etc… It is fascinating to watch the local news talk about how the ICUs here in Colorado are filled to capacity. That there is a shortage of nurses. That doctors are tired and thinking about quitting. That the largest increase in Covid cases in Colorado besides unvaccinated adults are unvaccinated kids in the 7 to 11 range… But then in the next breath there is a lively and up beat news piece on the upcoming Bronco game and about how the stands are filled to capacity or the recent Colfax marathon and how many people were going to show up. And I think to myself that these are Covid Super Spreader events. How many people will go home from these events with Covid and eventually die or develop long Covid or spread it to others? Of course this is not just Denver but is happening across the country in just about every major city. It feels like the “economic powers that be” do not care if you live or die as long as it does not affect their bottom line.

Two days before publishing, October 27th, the death toil was at 762,000. Even though the numbers have been trending down, that is an increase 35,000 deaths from starting this blog, 21 days ago. And we were still adding 60,000 to 80,000 new cases each day. Mainly the “unvaccinated.” Oh well what are you going to do?????

On a better note, The Pfizer Covid Vaccine was approved for kids 5 to 11!! Yea!!

Well, the fourth wave of Covid has crashed upon the USA and is now on the wane with most of the morbidity and mortality due to the unvaccinated. Unfortunately there are still about 70 million in this country that have not gotten the shot… We are making progress but not fast enough. Thanksgiving is just around the corner, not to mention Halloween, and there is some thought there will be a fifth wave. But it will be a much more “localized” event(s), mainly affecting the states without mandates and / or low vaccination rates. If your interested check out this site by the KFF: https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/issue-brief/latest-data-on-covid-19-vaccinations-by-race-ethnicity/

Another good article on why the predictability (will there be a 5th wave) with Covid is difficult can be found on MedPage Today. You can check it out at this link: Delta on the Decline? Not So Fast | MedPage Today

Well enough about Covid! Time to move on to something else! The last two weeks of September and the first couple of weeks of October have been fantastic for running or getting out for any kind of exercise. Yea! The wildfires out in California had run their course, especially the big one around Lake Tahoe and this made a dramatic improvement in the quality of air here in Colorado. Of course this did not really work out for my ultrarunning plans, but it is OK. I am glad to have the clean air. It is of interest that in the middle of October, California was still having major fire issues. The Alisal Fire was at 13,000 acres and being fueled by strong winds. It was located in Santa Barbara County in the Los Padres National Forest. Luckily it was not causing air quality issues in Colorado because the winds were blowing it along the California Cost toward Los Angeles, San Diego and eventually out to sea. Of course by the end of the month the “Bomb Cyclone” had hit Cali and fires were not an issue anymore. Lol. Or at least for now.

The above picture was taken on September 9th, 2021 at about 7:30pm in the evening. It was still pretty warm during the month of September and we kept the habit of walking Marvin in the morning and again later in the evening. The county we live in had one of the warmest Septembers on record. Actually, I think that most of Colorado had a pretty warm September.

The above picture was taken on September 14th, 2021 at about 2:45pm in the afternoon. This was a picture looking toward what I believe is Cameron Peak at 12, 000 feet in the Rawah Wilderness. The air quality was excellent for the day and Marvin and I had a great time.

The above picture was taken on September 16th, 2021 at about 1:15pm in the afternoon. It was another beautiful day for air quality and Janet and I were up doing a trail / road called Michigan ditch. Here I am looking at Nokhu Crags at 12,484 feet. Just below these peaks are a couple of lakes called the American Lakes.

The above picture was taken on September 22nd, 2021 at about 4:30pm in the afternoon. Here I am looking North from the top of a hogback hill in the Pine Ridge Open Space in Fort Collins. Instead of running on this day I was out biking. By this time I had well over 2000 miles of running and walking for the year and felt that doing a little biking would be good for the body and mind.

The above picture was taken on September 30th, 2021 at about 2:30pm in the afternoon. It was finally a cool afternoon and Janet and I decided to walk Marvin a little further than usual and took him down to the river. This was along the Poudre Bike Trail in Fort Collins.

The above picture was taken on October 2nd, 2021 at about 11:45am. Marvin and I were taking advantage of the beautiful weather and clean air to get up above timberline on Montgomery Pass. This is looking West towards Cameron Pass and the Nokhu Crags. There was already a little bit of snow on the higher peaks!

The “Marvin walks” while not as exercise intensive as just running, have allowed quit a bit of “audio book” listening. Here are a couple I would like to review. They are great ones to add to your reading list.

The first one I would like to review and recommend is “A Hunter-Gatherer’s Guide to the 21st Century” by Heather Heying and Bret Weinstein. I came across this book while looking for Steven Pinker’s new book called Rationality. And I am really glad that I did. What an interesting perspective on our modern society and how it relates to our evolutionary past. The authors draw on years of teaching at the college level and combine it with their vast experience of being out in some of the Earth’s most unique environments. They take all of this experience and apply it to where we are in society at the moment and help the reader to understand some of the paradoxes we see with our contemporary world.

I liked this book so well that I listened to it twice. It was that good. I specially liked the sections on “hyper novelty” and the “sustainability crisis.” In my opinion this hits the nail right on the head so to speak. Enovation is moving at warp speed and trying to get our Paleolithic brains wrapped around this fact is what has led to a lot of the problems we see today. The “sustainability crisis” is one that is only going to get worse as time moves along. We have lived and moved to every part of the globe since time immortal. As the authors points out – growth is in our DNA. So the issue becomes where do we go from here? One of their solutions was developing a “stead state economy” and I really like this idea. But in my honest opinion it is only a stop gap measure. Now that we have completely “tamed” all corners of the earth the only real solution (the author’s do not suggest it) is to go up – into space. But that is a topic for another time.

I got this book as an audio book, but it would work well in any format. If I did it again I would have probably gotten it as a traditional book. I found myself listening to a section, stopping and thinking about it, and then going back and listening again. A very thought provoking book. Of course you can find the book on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Hunter-Gatherers-Guide-21st-Century-Challenges/dp

Heather and Bret are both evolutionary biologists.

The next one I would like to review and recommend is “The Butterfly Effect: Insects and the Making of the Modern World” by Edward D. Melillo. I first heard about this fascinating book from an NPR interview with the author. Most of us realize that insects are essential for things like pollination and as a food source in some countries but most of us (myself included) had no idea that they have played a much more significant role in our lives.

The author does an excellent job in telling the historical story of silk worm cultivation and how important this development was in the ancient and modern world. Another one is the use of the lac insects to produce “lac” which is used to make shellac. Besides being used as a wood finish, lac is also used in polishes, inks, electrical insulation, cosmetics, lubricants, sealants and more. A third one that I did not know about was the use of cochineal scale insects to make the bright red pigment carmine. This has been made into dyes for clothing, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, and food coloring to name a few uses. There are several other fascinating insect examples in the book.

The author not only gives you a good understanding of the why and how these insects are used – but he also includes a historical perspective of the influence these insects have had in human society and culture. Insect cultivation has been a significant player in the development of civilization prior to the introduction of synthetics.

I listened to this book as an audio book but I am thinking it might work better in tradition format so that you can easily reference material that you have previously read. Of course the book can be found on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Butterfly-Effect-Insects-Making-Modern/dp

The last one I would like to review and recommend is called “Project Hail Mary” by Andy Weir. If you liked “The Martian” and “Artemis” by Weir I think that you will like this one too. The main character in this book is a lot like the main character in the Martian and the story line reads very similar. Of course the book is Science Fiction but there is a lot of real science mixed in. Your inner nerd is going to like this book. Lol.

In a nut shell the main character Ryland wakes up without any idea of who he is or where he is or how he got into space in the first place. In the process of figuring all this out he finds that he is in a desperate race to save humanity.

I would have to say that there is a little more SiFi in this book than in the previous two. But I did not find that detracting from the story at all. In fact it really made me stop and wonder if some of the speculative fiction will eventual be something proved to be true in some form or fashion in the future. It is one of those books that makes you go – hmmm I never thought of it that way.

I listened to the book as an audio book but it would work great in any format and can be found on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Project-Hail-Mary/dp

Well last but not least I would like to showcase one piece of newly finished art work. This is done in pen and ink, mounted on painted white board and sealed with mod podge. It measures 7.25 inches wide and is 10.25 inches tall. When hanging it the overall length is about 15 inches.

I did this one as tribute to all the women I have worked with over the years in the health care profession. In the famous words of the founder of the Leadville 100: “You’re better than you think you are. You can do more than you think you can.” – Ken Chlouber.

You don’t have to be an ultrarunner to get this quote. We are all a lot stronger than we realize and meditation can help us to find that strength and resolve when things get tough.

Om Shakti

This piece and others are for sale and can be found on my Etsy site: https://www.etsy.com/shop/strugglingprotoplasm/edit?ref=seller-platform-mcnav

Well look at that! I have come to the end of another blog post and before I close, I want to say again…. if you have not thought about “Minimalism” you should. Our growth at all cost culture IS NOT SOMETHING our children and grand children are going to look back on in the future with fondness and admiration. Remember that scene at the end of the Planet of the Apes movie (1968) when the character Taylor (played by Charlton Heston) makes the quote: “You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!” In this scene Taylor is lamenting the fate of the human race when he delivers this quote. Of course in the movie the environmental catastrophe is caused by nuclear war but could have occurred for any number of other reasons.

How much destruction can our environment take? How much indiscriminate pillaging of the planet’s natural resources can occur before something breaks? The question is not whether the earth will survive but will humanity. That is the question. Will humanity survive?

The current economic model of growth for growth’s sake is not sustainable. If we want to keep the earth habitable for humanity we need a different way of doing things. One way to do this might be to create what is know as a “Steady-state Economy.” It is a way to balance intelligent growth with environmental integrity. Let me say that again – to balance growth with environmental integrity. What it is NOT is growth for growth’s sake policy. This could provide us with a temporary solution until technology catches up and gets us off planet and out in to the vast reaches of space.

Great sounding words but you may be asking how does one go about doing this? Well, one way we can do this on an individual level is to become Minimalist. Minimalism is essentially a steady state economy on a personal scale.

And a good way to start this process on a personal level is with a period of de-growth. Stuff is stuff and you can have too much of it. Just like food. Too much of a good thing is going to cause problems. Cut out the empty calories so to speak by buying less and making good decisions on what you buy. Buy used when possible, pass it on when you are done with it, care for the stuff you already have, and if you absolutely have to buy new – look for durability, fixability, sustainable, and ethically made products that will last for years. Become the change you want to see.

Ok, enough of the soap box but if you interested and want to learn more please visit these sites: https://www.theminimalists.com/minimalism/ and https://steadystate.org/

So take care my friends and if you have not gotten vaccinated, then get it done! We all want this “Groundhog Day-Covid-Marry-Go-Round” to end. Until next time! Adios!!

“May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous…, leading to the most amazing views.” Edward Abbey

Air Quality, AllTrails, Art, Book Review, Colorado, Covid 19, Dogs, Exercise, Family, Fort Collins, Horsetooth Mountain Open Space, Pandemics, PurpleAir, Religion, Science, Space, Trail Running, Wildfire

MUSINGS FOR FRIDAY 24TH, SEPTEMBER 2021

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“Science is the one human activity that is truly progressive. The body of positive knowledge is transmitted from generation to generation.” Edwin Powell Hubble

This image was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. It is a picture of what is know as the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) – a dwarf galaxy. Another name it goes by is Nubecula Minor. In Latin, Nubecula means little cloud. The SMC is visible from the entire Southern Hemisphere, but can be seen low on the southern horizon from latitudes south of 15 degrees north. Meaning – To see it in North America, you would have to be in the Southern Caribbean or further south. The SMC is about 210 thousand light years away with a diameter of about 7,000 light years. It contains several hundred million stars. In comparison, our galaxy the Milky Way, contains an estimated 100 billion. The SMC is one of the nearest intergalactic neighbors to our galaxy and one of the most distant objects that can be seen with the naked eye. Image credit: NASA, ESA and A. Nota (STScI/ESA). If you would like to learn more about the SMC please visit these sites: https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/brilliant-hot-young-stars-shine-in-the-small-magellanic-cloud and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_Magellanic_Cloud

“You are what you know. Fifteenth-century Europeans ‘knew’ that the sky was made of closed concentric crystal spheres, rotating around a central earth and carrying the stars and planets. That ‘knowledge’ structured everything they did and thought, because it told them the truth. Then Galileo’s telescope changed the truth.” James Burke

This is an image of a part of the Gemini Constellation. It is located in the norther celestial hemisphere. It’s name means “the twins” in Latin. The constellation was first catalogued by the Greek astronomer Ptolemy in the 2nd century ce. The picture was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope and features a stellar nursery named AFGL 5180. It is about 5000 light years away. Due to the stellar dust associated with star formation, it can be difficult to see the newly formed stars. But Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 was designed to do this very thing by capturing detailed images in both visible and infrared light. Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, J. C. Tan (Chalmers University & University of Virginia), R. Fedriani (Chalmers University); Acknowledgment: Judy Schmidt. If you want to learn more about this image please check out there links: https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/star-formation-in-the-constellation-of-gemini-the-twins and https://www.constellation-guide.com/constellation-list/gemini-constellation/ and https://www.sciencealert.com/hubble-s-latest-image-release-is-so-beautiful-it-should-be-illegal

“What we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning.” Werner Heisenberg

This image is showing the Lagoon Nebula or Messier 8. The picture was created by using X-ray data (pink color) from the Chandra X-ray space telescope and optical images from the Mt. Lemmon Sky Center in Arizona (Blue and White Color). Messier 8 is about 4000 to 6000 light years from earth. It was first discovered in 1654 by the Italian astronomer Giovanni Battista Hodierna. This star-forming cloud of interstellar gas is located in the constellation Sagittarius and can be slightly visible to the naked eye in a very dark sky. Image Credit: NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical: Adam Block/Mount Lemmon SkyCenter/University of Arizona. If you want to learn more about this image or the Sky Center in Arizona please see these links: https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/the-lagoon-nebula-gives-birth-to-stars and https://skycenter.arizona.edu/ and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagoon_Nebula

“When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.” Max Planck

This is an image of the spiral galaxy NGC 2276 taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. It lies about 120 million light years away in the northern constellation Cepheus. One of its spiral arms contains an intermediate mass black hole with 50,000 times the mass of the sun. First discovery credit is given to Friedrich August Theodor Winnecke in 1876. Of course at that time it was not understood that it was a separate galaxy from our own. That would have to wait until Edwin Hubble came along. Image Credit: NASA, ESA, STScI, Paul Sell (University of Florida). If you want to learn more about his image please visit: https://hubblesite.org/contents/media/images/2021/029/01F60K4CF8WRAD8GQ03HEBNBMQ and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_2276

“For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.” Carl Sagan

This is an image showing Dr. Nancy Grace Roman (third from left), Nasa’s first Chief of Astronomy and “The Mother of Hubble” visiting the Space Telescope Operations Center at the Goddard Space Flight Center in 2017. This was about one year before her death (1925 to 2018). Pictured left to right are: Beverly Serrano, Morgan Van Arsdall, Nancy Grace Roman, Olivia Lupie, Padi Boyd, and Erin Kisliuk. Nasa posted this picture on August 26th, 2021 to celebrate Women’s Equality Day. The day is celebrated each year on August 26th and commemorates the passage of the 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote in the United States in 1920. Image Credit: NASA/GSFC/Jim Jeletic. If you would like to learn more please visit these sites: https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/paving-the-way-for-future-generations-of-women-in-stem and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women’s_Equality_Day and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nancy_Roman

HEY!! I AM LOOKING AT YOU!! THAT’S WHO!! LOLOLOLOLOL

If you are reading this then you have continued to survive Covid 19 so far and so have I!! And that my friends is a very, very, good thing for all of us. I am still crossing my fingers and now my toes, hoping that I can keep saying this for the next year. I really mean that. I am hoping that I can.

The virus is back and with a vengeance. The death toil has skyrocketed again and when I started to write this blog post on September 7th, we were at 669 thousands death. This was an increase in the last 30 days of 36,000 individuals. To put this in perspective, between June 6th to July 6th we only had 9,000 deaths. A significant drop, and it really looked like things were headed in the right direction. Of course “the experts” were warning about the Delta variant by this time and did we listen? No, not really. Events that were planned back earlier in the year for July, August and September were not canceled or modified for the most part and have been going off as planned. So the last 30 days has seen a huge increase in infections and death. 36,000 thousand individuals and counting… My question is how high is this going to go??

Well it has been 9 months since I got the initial two doses of the Pfizer Vaccine for Covid and when the third shot became available, I jumped on it. So did my wife. By the time of publishing it will have been 3.5 weeks since I got the third booster and no side effects so far. There has been some debate from the FDA, CDC and the President’s health advisory committee about whether the booster is needed for the general population. At the time of publishing it was not being recommended for the general public in the United States, unless you were a health care worker, over the age of 65 or immunocompromised. In Israel, it is being offered to everyone over the age of 30 and at least 5 months since their second shot.

By the middle of the month, September 15th, we had added another 16,000 deaths since September 7th. Wow, that is only 8 days and 16,000 more deaths. And that is with several states, like Florida, Ohio, Wisconsin, Missouri, Iowa and Wyoming not reporting on a timely basis. So the toil is probably much higher. Or to put this another way: one person in every 500 individuals dies because of Covid now in the United States.

By the time of publishing on the 24th, the death toil was over 700,000 thousand individuals in the USA. So what that means is that we added another 30,000 plus deaths in 17 days or 70,000 deaths since August 6th. A little more than 35,000 for each month of August and September. Unreal. And again, this is with some states not reporting in a timely manner. How high will the toil go by the end of the year?? My guess is that it will be 800,000 to 1 million deaths. Especially with Thanksgiving coming up and of course you have X-mass and New Years… Almost all of this has been preventable. From the Grand Cheeto’s debacle in how he handled the early part of the pandemic to now with the anti-vaccine people.

Of course much of the morbidity and mortality in this fourth wave of Covid is due to the unvaccinated. So if there ever was a time to get vaccinated, it is now. Actually it is past time. So do yourself and your loved ones a favor and get vaccinated.

If you want to see the numbers for yourself check out this link: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

I am tired of talking about Covid but what are you going to do? You are not going to get anywhere by ignoring it. But life does go on, so lets move on to something a little different and somewhat better. During the month of August there were only a handful of days that the air quality was good enough to really get out and push the pedal to the medal so to speak. I did get in a few trail runs but nothing like I did in June and July. Believe it or not the air quality went from bad to worse by the end of August. It was really not until the second week of September that things started to improve a little bit.

This picture was taken on August 8th, 2021 at about 7:45pm in the afternoon. It is looking West and you can see the smoke in the area. I wanted to post this picture because this was pretty much everyday for the month of August. Most of the air quality alerts for the month ranged from Moderate to Unhealthy. Not really good for any kind of heavy training in the outdoors. The only good thing to come out of the smoke is that it made for some spectacular sunsets in the area. Every morning the first thing to do was to check the Purple Air Map (https://www2.purpleair.com/ ) and the Open Summit Map (https://opensummit.com/ ) for current air quality and smoke forecast. You could not even get away from it by going up into the mountains. The entire state was covered.

This picture was taken on August 13th, 2021 at about 12 noon and it is one of the last days that I ran in the Horsetooth Open Space behind Fort Collins. This was due to smoke issues. If you look between the trees you can see the haze out east. The wind had made a tiny window of opportunity to get a run in before the smoke came back and made things unhealthy.

The next three pictures were taken on a hike / run with my oldest daughter. It was in a wilderness area called the Rawah’s. It is in Northern Colorado, about 70 miles west of Fort Collins. The elevation ranges from 8500 feet to over 12,000 feet.

This picture was taken on August 21st, 2021 at about 10am in the morning. It is a picture of my oldest daughter Kayla and me. We are just a couple of hours into a hike / run on the West Branch Trail in the Rawah Wilderness Area.

This picture was taken on August 21st, 2021 about 10:30am in the morning and it is a view of Clark Peak. It is the highest point in the Rawah’s at 12,950 feet and part of the Medicine Bow Mountain range: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicine_Bow_Mountains In this picture I am standing on the West Branch Trail looking West.

This picture was taken August 21st, 2021 at about 11:45am in the morning. Here we are sitting at the end of the West Branch Trail, elevation over 11,000 feet. It was a great hike/run and fun to do with Kayla, Marvin and Marvin’s dog buddy Cash. Again, I cannot over emphasize the issues with the smoke this year. Even though the sky in the pictures looks clear, the air quality was moderate to moderate high for 2.5 particulates and we both experienced some upper respiratory symptoms after the run. This is a great area to go hiking, running, back packing, etc… A good app to check out this area is on AllTrails: https://www.alltrails.com/trail/us/colorado/west-branch-trail

The next three pictures are from a third and last trail run in August. The air quality had dramatically improved for a day with the passage of a weak cold front and associated rain. It is in the same general area as the above three pictures but with much better air quality on this date.

This picture was taken on August 24th, 2021 at about 12:00noon. In the first couple of miles of the West Branch trail there is a huge grove of Aspen Trees. The stark white bark of the aspens contrasting with the dark green foliage of the spruce and pines makes for an interesting landscape. I am planning to come back here later in the fall to see the leaves changing color.

This picture was taken on August 24th, 2021 at about 2:30pm in the afternoon. Here Marvin and I are on our way to Twin Crater Lakes. We took a fork in the West Branch Trail at about 3 to 4 miles in and headed up a different drainage. There were lots and lots of deadfall on this trail from the previous winter. Most of the trail clearing effort was still being focused on repairing fire burned areas from last year. It made for some interesting trail acrobatics to say the least! Lol.

This picture was taken August 24th, 2021 at about 3:30pm in the afternoon. Marvin and I had made it to one of the lakes. Here we are enjoying the sunshine at about 11,000 feet. It was a beautiful windless day. There were a few people up here with us either fishing or just enjoying the view like we were. You can check out this route via the AllTrails app: https://www.alltrails.com/trail/us/colorado/west-branch-to-north-forks-trail-and-twin-crater-lakes

Due to the poor air quality and high temperatures for Colorado’s front range, we decided to divide our walks with Marvin into smaller segments for August. Heavy exercise outdoors such as running was not something I wanted to do. It made no sense to put in all that effort, only to make things worse due to breathing in bad air. The days for August went something like this: easy walk in the AM with Marvin, heavy workout indoors using Rower, Nordic Track, or Spin Bike, easy walk with Marvin in the afternoon. This was one time I wished that I had a quality treadmill but that will have to wait until next year.

This picture was taken on August 26, 2021 at about 11:45am in the morning. Janet and I are just finishing up a morning walk with Marvin. The temperature was already in the high 80s but would continue to climb into the mid nineties by the afternoon. Air quality was in the moderate range as it was most mornings, but would climb to a much unhealthy level by afternoon with the addition of ozone created by the higher than normal temperatures.

With the rise of the Delta variant of Covid and the continued unhealthy air quality in Colorado the prospects of competing in my planned ultrarunning events (Leadville 100 and Run Rabbit Run) did not go off as planned. Oh well what are you going to do? I know that there were those that pushed the safety zone and did these events regardless of the risk factors. But that is not for me. I get it, it is hard to not do something that requires so much training and self sacrifice and then have the world throw you curve balls. It is like getting ready for a huge “party of the year” and at the last minute, while your heading out the door, canceling it. You experience a sense of loss. And for some, that is hard to work around. I am 59 years old and I still want to be doing the ultra running thing when I am in my 80s. So the risk was not acceptable.

I did get a lot of reading done with the “Marvin Walks” in the sense that I listened to several audio books. So I would like to review a couple of them.

The first one I would like to start with is The Premonition written by Michael Lewis. Let me say that this is not a book just about the current pandemic and who did or did not do what they were suppose to do. It is about several different public health experts and their stories over the last 10 to 20 years and what roles they played at the start of the current pandemic. If you were looking for an anti-trump book then you might be disappointed. It does point out the fallacies of the Trump admiration but not in an over bearing manner. I would say that over all this book paints a very negative light on the CDC that started way before the Trump era. If anything needs to change, it is the CDC and how they advise the public, handle data and help other public health officials dealing with public health issues. None of the characters, outside of the CDC, paint the organization in a glowing light. And to me that says a lot.

The author does a good job of bringing what can be a dry topic ( public health) to life. I would say that it almost reads like a novel. I listened to this book as an audio book but I feel it would work well in any format.

From the Amazon site: Michael Lewis, the best-selling author of The Undoing Project, Liar’s Poker, Flash Boys, Moneyball, The Blind Side, Home Game and The Big Short, among other works, lives in Berkeley, California, with his wife, Tabitha Soren, and their three children.

You can find this book at Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Premonition-Pandemic-Story-Michael-Lewis/dp/0393881555/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=The+premonition&qid=1632257294&sr=8-1

The next book I would like to talk about is “Why Trust Science?” by Naomi Oreskes. I first heard about Naomi Oreskes from a YouTube video from “The Royal Institution.” This is a channel were scientist talk about their research and sometimes promote their book about said research. If you interested in her talk, check out this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7PwqiiQmVM

I would have to say that the book did not disappoint. It was published in 2019 and is very relevant to the issues of today and the future. She gives a good historical perspective on science from the past all the way up to today. What I liked best is that she uses case studies to show where science got it wrong so to speak. And how we have learned from those mistakes.

In the book she does not shy away from some of the issues associated with the scientific process of today. The proliferation of what is know as “preprints” and how they are good to get information out but at the same time have a down side in that they have not had a formal peer review in a scholarly or scientific journal. And the whole idea of “Publish or Perish”, that creates issues for scientist to get something out “there” as quickly as possible before all the data collected can be fully analyzed. And she addresses some of the issues with corporate backed research. You do have to ask yourself is there going to be a “conflict of interest” in this research if XYZ corporation is backing it?

This is a great book if you want to understand, even with all of the issues in scientific research, why we should trust science. I listened to this book as an audio book but I think it would work great in any format.

Naomi Oreskes is an American historian of science and author. To learn more about her please visit this link: Naomi Oreskes – Wikipedia

Of course you can find this book on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Why-Trust-Science-Naomi-Oreskes-audiobook/dp/B07W99GTG3/ref=tmm_aud_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1632430393&sr=8-1

Well last but not least I would like to showcase one piece of newly finished art work before I go. It is a pen and ink with water color drawing of Jesus of Nazareth, except I have given it a little more of my own personal interpretation. Lol. I call this piece “Jesus of Borg.” Now if you are not a Star Trek fan you might not know who the Borg are in the series. But in a nutshell they are cybernetic organisms linked in a hive mind called “The Collective.” They are known to assimilate others into their collective whether they want it or not. If you are interested check out this link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borg

I started this piece with anger over the Texas GOPs enactment of the anti-abortion law. I have three adult daughters and while they might not agree on whether it is right or wrong to get an abortion, they all agree that it is “their right” to choose. And I agree with them. So that is how the piece started out but it morphed into something a little different. Did you know that there are at least 10,000 different denominations of Christianity in the world. Of course some say this number is much higher but I figure 10,000 is a safe estimate. Knowing this I thought why not make up my own Jesus?! A lot of other people have. So I did! And what I came up with was a bad ass LGBT SiFi Jesus. A Jesus that would assimilate all other Jesuses, even Republican Jesus, into a hive mind and create an accepting and loving collective for all people and all religions. In Star Trek, the Borg are considered the enemy but in my version I have turned it around and made “Jesus of Borg” the good guy, the savior. What is Jesus of Borg’s religion? Why Science Fiction of course. All religion is mythology and so is Science Fiction, therefore the largest religion in the world and the only one that has a chance of ever coming true is SiFi.

This drawing is done in pen and ink with water color and is protected with a traditional picture frame and glass. It measures approximately 12 inches wide by 15 inches tall.

“Jesus of Borg”

This piece and others are for sale and can be found on my Etsy site: https://www.etsy.com/shop/strugglingprotoplasm/edit?ref=seller-platform-mcnav

Wow! I have come to the end of another blog post and before I close, I want to say this again, if you have not thought about the mindset of “Minimalism” you should. The consumeristic culture we have created is not sustainable. That is if we don’t want to destroy the very environment that makes all human life possible. I have no doubt that the earth will survive, but will humanity? That remains to be seen.

Ever since the early 1900s when the people that make light bulbs decided to limit their lifespan so that consumers would have to buy more, we have been locked into this engineering and marketing principle of “planned obsolescence.” According to “Free Market Capitalism” we have to grow, grow and grow – therefore corporations have to sell us more stuff every year, after year, after year, with no end in sight. They have to make more in profit each year than the year before. They cannot just be profitable but have to make more each and every year or they are looked at as a failure. When I seriously think about this I am always reminded of the maxim: “Growth for growth’s sake is the definition of a Cancer Cell.” And that is what we have. Our economic system in the United States could be considered a cancer. And it needs to change.

So you might be wondering what YOU can do to help kill this cancer?! Well the first thing you can do is to become Minimalist! Stuff is stuff and you can have too much of it. Just like food. Too much of a good thing is going to cause problems. Cut out the empty calories so to speak by buying less and making good decisions on what you buy. Buy used when possible, pass it on when you are done with it, care for the stuff you already have, and if you absolutely have to buy new – look for durability, fixability, sustainable, and ethically made products that will last for years. Become the change you want to see.

Ok, ok enough of the soap box but if your interested in “minimalism” a good place to start is here: https://www.theminimalists.com/minimalism/

So take care my friends and if you have not gotten vaccinated then get it done. Like the Nike slogan says: “Just do it!” We all want this “Groundhog Day-Covid-Marry-Go-Round” to stop. Until next time! Adios!!

“May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous…, leading to the most amazing views.” Edward Abbey

Air Quality, Art, Book Review, Colorado, Covid 19, Dogs, Exercise, Fort Collins, Horsetooth Mountain Open Space, Leadville Run 100, Pandemics, PurpleAir, Science, Science Fiction, Space, Trail Running

MUSINGS FOR FRIDAY 27TH, AUGUST 2021

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All the atoms we are made of are forged from hydrogen in stars that died and exploded before our solar system formed. So if you are romantic, you can say we are literally stardust. If you are less romantic, you can say we’re the nuclear waste from fuel that makes stars shine.” Martin J. Rees

This is a composite picture of the Orion Nebula and it was created by using images from the Hubble Space Telescope and images from ground based systems. This picture was created in 2006 and at the time it was the sharpest view of the Nebula ever taken. When looked at in detail the image shows more than 3000 stars, some of which had never been seen in visible light. Even though the Nebula is about 15,000 light years away, give or take a few, it is visible to the naked eye. It is the middle “star” in the sword of Orion, which are the three stars located south of of Orion’s Belt. Image Credit: NASA,ESA, M. Robberto (Space Telescope Science Institute/ESA) and the Hubble Space Telescope Orion Treasury Project Team. To learn more about this image or the nebula please visit these links: https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/a-peek-inside-the-orion-nebula and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion_Nebula

“I’d like to widen people’s awareness of the tremendous timespan lying ahead–for our planet, and for life itself. Most educated people are aware that we’re the outcome of nearly 4 billion years of Darwinian selection, but many tend to think that humans are somehow the culmination. Our sun, however, is less than halfway through its lifespan. It will not be humans who watch the sun’s demise, 6 billion years from now. Any creatures that then exist will be as different from us as we are from bacteria or amoebae.” Martin J. Rees

This is an image taken by the Hubble Space Telescope of the galaxy known as IC 5063. It is 156 million light years away. Astronomers believe that at its core is a supermassive black hole and the interplay of light and shadow you see in the image is created when light strikes a dust ring surrounding the black hole. The light is created by gas that is being sucked in by the black hole. As the gas gets closer, it is heated up and this action creates an accretion disc that radiates brilliant light. This phenomenon is similar to what we see on earth with sunlight streaming through broken clouds at sunset or sunrise. The light beams are scattered by the atmosphere creating bright rays and dark shadows. In the above image the scale is much, much larger – 36,000 light years across. Image credit: NASA, ESA, STScI and W.P. Maksym (CfA) To learn more about this image please visit this link: https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/bright-rays-and-dark-shadows-in-a-nearby-galaxy

“Our universe, extending immensely far beyond our present horizon, may itself be just one member of a possibly infinite ensemble. This “multiverse” concept, though speculative, is a natural extension of current cosmological theories, which gain credence because they account for things that we do observe. The physical laws and geometry could be different in other universes, and this offers a new perspective on the seemingly special values that the six numbers take in ours.” Martin J. Rees

This is an composite image of our Sun. How cool is that? On April 29th, 2015, three different instruments were used to look at the Sun: the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR), Japan’s Hinode spacecraft, and Solar Dynamics Observatory. NuSTAR images are in blue, Hinode are in green and Solar Dynamics are in yellow. The NuSTAR data shows the most energetic spots. It was launched in June of 2012 and is still functioning. It’s mission in a nut shell was to study the universe in high energy X-rays to better understand the dynamics of black holes, exploding stars and active galaxies. It was the first hard-focusing X-ray telescope to orbit Earth. The Japan Hinode spacecraft was launched in 2006 and it mission was to explore the magnetic fields of the Sun. The mission was only for three years but has been extended to sometime in 2022. Another interesting part of the Hinode mission in my opinion is that it was a collaborative effort between the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, Japan’s National Astronomical Observatory, NASA, and the space agencies of Norway, the United Kingdom and the European Space Agency. Wow! The Solar Dynamics Observatory was launched by NASA in 2010 and was designed to understand the Sun’s influence on the Earth. SDO has been investigating how the Sun’s magnetic field is generated and structured. And how this effects earth. It’s mission was only to last 5 years but it is still in use at the moment. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/GSFC/JAXA. To learn more about this check out this link: https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/staring-at-the-sun

“Incidentally, if any signs of life were found elsewhere in our solar system – and if we could be sure that it was based on a different kind of DNA, implying that it had a separate origin from terrestrial life – then we could immediately conclude that life was widespread in the universe. Something that had happened twice around a single star must have happened on millions of planets elsewhere in the Galaxy.” Martin J. Rees

This is an image of Jupiter’s moon Ganymede! Now let that sink in a minute. It is a somewhat close up view of the moon of a different planet in our solar system. How cool is that? It was obtained by NASA’s Juno Spacecraft using an instrument called the Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper or (JIRAM). The Juno Spacecraft was launched in 2011 and did not reach Jupiter until 2016. It was designed to study the planet. The above image was produced by the Juno science team by combining the data from three flybys, the latest approach was on July 20th this year. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/ASI/INAF/JIRAM. If you want to learn more about this image or the Juno Spacecraft please visit these links: https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/juno-celebrates-10-years-with-a-new-view-of-jovian-moon-ganymede and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juno_(spacecraft)

“We’re not aware of the “big picture,” any more than a plankton whose universe was a liter of water would be aware of the world’s topography and biosphere.” Martin J. Rees

This is an image taken by the Hubble Space Telescope of a section of the Perseus cluster. The cluster itself is one of the most massive objects in the known universe and contains thousands of galaxies. The above picture shows just two of the galaxies. The one on the left is a lenticular galaxy, named 2MASX J03193743+4137580 and the one on the right is a spiral galaxy named more simply UGC 265. Both lie approximately 350 million light years from earth. Image Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, W. Harris; Acknowledgment: L. Shatz. To learn more about the above image please visit these links: https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2021/hubble-glimpses-a-galactic-duo and https://phys.org/news/2021-07-image-hubble-glimpses-galactic-duo.html

“Humanity’s long-term impact on Earth depends both on population and on lifestyle. The World Wildlife Foundation, a conservation group, has published estimates of the land area, or “footprint,” needed to support each person: It concludes that an area equivalent to “almost three planets” would be required to support the world’s population with the lifestyle and consumption pattern that it predicts for 2050. This particular calculation is controversial and perhaps somewhat tendentious: For instance, the “footprint” includes the area of forest needed to soak up the carbon dioxide arising from each person’s energy use, making no allowance for a shift to renewable energy sources, nor for the tenable viewpoint that modest rises in carbon dioxide levels are tolerable. Nonetheless, the world plainly could not perpetually support its entire population in the present style of middle-class Europeans and North Americans.” Martin J. Rees

You will never be as cool as Apollo 15 Commander David Scott as he drove the lunar rover on the surface of the Moon. It has now been 50 years since the Apollo 15 mission. It was the ninth crewed mission in the Apollo program and the fourth to land on the Moon. It was the first J mission, with a longer stay on the Moon and greater focus on science than earlier landings. The astronauts were David Scott, James Irwin and Alfred Worden. This was the first mission in which the Lunar Rover was used. Image Credit: NASA. If you would like to learn more about this picture or the Apollo 15 mission please visit these links: https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/taking-a-ride-on-the-moon-in-the-lunar-roving-vehicle and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_15

“It may not be absurd hyperbole — indeed, it may not even be an over statement –to assert that the most crucial location in space and time (apart from the big bang itself) could be here and now. I think that odds are no better than fifty-fifty that our present civilization on Earth will survive to the end of the present century. Our choices and actions could ensure the perpetual future of life (not just on Earth, but perhaps far beyond it, too). Or in contrast, through malign intent, or through misadventure, twenty-first century technology could jeopardize life’s potential, foreclosing its human and posthuman future. What happens here on Earth, in this century, could conceivably make the difference between a near eternity filled with ever more complex and subtle forms of life and one filled with nothing but base matter.” Martin J. Rees

Martin J. Rees is a British cosmologist and astrophysicist. He is a recipient of numerous awards and author / co-author of many book and publications. To learn more about this distinguished astrophysicist please visit this site: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Rees To see the books please check out this link: Amazon.com: Martin J. Rees: Books, Biography, Blog, Audiobooks, Kindle

HEY!! I AM LOOKING AT YOU!! THAT’S WHO!! LOLOLOLOLOL

If you are reading this then you have continued to survive Covid 19 so far and so have I!! And that my friends is a very, very good thing for all of us. I am still crossing my fingers and hoping that I can keep saying this for the next year.

When I started to write this blog on August 8th, the death count, unfortunately, had increase by 10,000 deaths (total of 632 thousand). This is 1000 more individuals from the previous 30 days. It looks like most of these people were the unvaccinated and they had the Delta variant. The day before I started writing, the city authorities in Austin, Texas issued an alert via text, phone calls, email, social media and other channels to warn people in the area that hospitals were open but due to the surge in Covid cases, resources were very limited. There ICU bed capacity for the entire city was down into the single digits. Unreal when you think about a city of almost 1 million people. It is the 11th, largest city in the United States.

Part of this unfortunate surge in cases in the Lone Star State is due to the governor issuing an executive order back in May, preventing counties, cities, public health authorities and local governments officials from requiring people to wear masks. He signed a more far reaching order at the end of July barring both mask and vaccination mandates, and prohibiting public agencies and any private entities that take public funds, including grants and loans, from requiring proof of vaccination. Of course Texas has not been the only state to record increasing infections and deaths. Florida is not far behind. To read more about this check out the New York times link: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/07/us/austin-covid-dire-abbott.html

It has now been 32 weeks since I got the Pfizer Vaccine for Covid and…. so far there have been no side effects for me! And I really don’t expect there to be any. If you have not gotten vaccinated by now because you refused it…. Then you are the problem. Get vaccinated. No ands, if or buts, get vaccinated. Or don’t and you may win a Darwin Award Honorable Mention! While not a full fledged “Darwin Award”, dying of Covid because you refused to get vaccinated will at least get you an Honorable Mention. Of course this is just my opinion but should be put in the Website. If you do not know what the Darwin Awards are please check out this link: https://darwinawards.com/

You don’t have to remove yourself from the gene pool in “spectacular fashion” to get an “Honorable Mention”. Not getting vaccinated and dying of Covid will do just fine.

By the middle of the month Texas had finally surpassed New York for the most deaths from Covid and it had put them in second place, right behind California. The “state of interest” in the Covid debacle will be Florida. They are currently in fourth place right behind New York now and would need 14,000 more deaths to catch up but I am guessing that by the first of the year this might be possible. Unreal and not in a good way.

Toward the end of the month we were up to 150,000 plus new cases each day, with the top states of course being Texas, Florida, and California, unfortunately deaths were starting to follow as expected. In June, deaths were down to 200 per day or so, sometimes lower, but by the end of August we were up 1000++ per day (total of 652 thousand). The crazy part of this is that some states were very reluctant to report their case numbers. So the totals might have been even higher.

By the time I published this blog on Friday 27th, approximately 20 days since starting it, we had added 20,000 deaths due to Covid! Let that sink in a moment… 20 thousand deaths due to Covid in 20 days. The fourth wave is truly upon us…

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Well enough about Covid for the moment, lets move on to something that is a little better for the month of July – but not by much! Lol. I swear, if it was not the Covid BS then it was fires on the West Coast from California to British Columbia and the resultant smoke issues for the rest of the nation, including Colorado. July here on the Front Range warmed up fast. The 90 degree plus days were back and in full force for the month of July, which was not unexpected. Unfortunately the air quality really took a nosedive at the same time. Mainly due to the big fires out West and to a lesser degree the increase in Ozone from the higher temperatures. With the combination of the two, it really became challenging at times to get out doors.

This picture was taken July 5th, 2021 at about 12:15pm and the temperatures were already in the 90 plus range. Too hot for the dog and almost too hot for me! Lol. This image is showing the Poudre river with it still flowing pretty good. While the Front Range was hot and dry, the mountains were getting some rain, so the river flows were still up. You cannot really see it in this picture but the river was pretty black and not it usual clear color. The dark color was created from the burn scars in the mountains west of town.

This image was taken July 8th, 2021 at about 1:15pm in the afternoon. This was in the open space west of town called Horsetooth Mountain. The mountain was still pretty green at this time but the temps were in the lower 90s. I really had to pick and choose my days carefully and consistently check the air quality website called Purple Air. (https://www.purpleair.com) Luckily I would get a few hours mid-morning in which the AQI was in the 50 to 60 range (not the best but not the worst) before Ozone levels became unhealthy. It was this combination of high AQI for PM 2.5 and afternoon ozone that really created some dirty air.

This picture was taken July 12th, 2021 at about 1pm in the afternoon. Again another hot day. The picture does not really do it justice. The temperature was about 90 degrees give or take a few points. The parking lot temperature was close to 100 at the trailhead. Again, this is in the open space west of town call Horsetooth Mountain Park. I did a lot of running in this area due to proximity to town. Training for an Ultra can eat up a lot of time in the process and anything you can do to decrease driving time to a training area helps in the long run. In this picture you can just see the smoke layer out east. It is that light dirty brown haze in the distance. The winds had just pushed it away from town for a bit and the air quality had improved dramatically.

This picture was taken July 16th, 2021 at about 1pm in the afternoon. Another hot one on this day. In the 90s again. This is looking west at the namesake of the open space – Horsetooth rock itself. Some people think the rock looks like the back molars of a horse.
Another reason I did a lot of training in this area and instead of the higher mountains was the risk of flash flooding across the burn scars. While the Front Range remained dry the mountains were getting the usual afternoon thunderstorms and it does not take much rain to create a flash flood in burned areas. So while the rain was a good thing to keep fire danger down in the mountains, the downside was the increased risk of flash flooding.

This picture was taken July 20th, 2021 at 10am in the morning. It is on the banks of the Poudre River. For most of the month of July we walked Marvin in the AM a short distance to beat the heat and then again late in the afternoon when the temps had dropped to 90 or below. On some afternoons we were back to wearing an N95 for smoke, if the AQI got into 150 range.
If your someone that gets outdoors a lot in the mountains, there is a great app out there called Open Summit. I use it for snow forecast in winter and in summer, for weather in mountains. Also they have a great “Smoke Forecast” map that was a big help in planning trail runs. If your interested check them out at this link: https://opensummit.com/
This picture was taken July 26th, 2021 at 12:30pm and I am in Horsetooth Mountain Park doing another trail run. The tree in this picture is a Ponderosa Pine. The open space has a lot of these trees. They are a large species of pine native to the mountainous regions of the western North America. If left alone this pine species can live 300 to 600 years and get very big – up to 200 feet in height and 8 feet in diameter Most of the ones in Horsetooth are secondary or even tertiary growth. Thinking about this I wonder what it would have been like to see these trees as the first settlers to the area did. They had to be massive. If you are interested in more information about these trees please see this website: https://www.srs.fs.usda.gov/pubs/misc/ag_654/volume_1/pinus/ponderosa.htm

As you probably have realized by now from the above pictures, I spent a lot of time, I mean a lot of time running on the trails in Horsetooth Mountain Park in order to get ready for the Leadville 100 but it was all for naught. Remember back in late May and early June there were the warnings about the Delta variant on the rise. Well that as we all know now has come to pass. While looking at these increasing numbers back in June, a realization started to form in my mind, that would result in two decisions. The first one occurred by July 1st. I left my health care job after being a registered nurse for over 39 years. The majority of that time was spent in Emergency Medicine. To say that 2020 was a terrible year while working in the ER is an understatement. Seeing the writing on the wall, so to speak, I quit. I decided to not go through that again. It was not the number of patients with Covid that created the issue for me, but the “hospital’s response” to Covid in general. I won’t go into it here but let me say it was beyond ugly last year and I was not going to experience that again.

This picture was taken August 4th, 2021 at about 11:30am. It is in Horsetooth Mountain Park looking up Tower’s Road. Another trail run to build up the climbing endurance needed for the Leadville 100. It has been disheartening to see the rise of the Delta variant and knowing that a lot of runners will take the virus home with them after competing in this years race. If we were really interested in the welfare of the public and not just an economic one, there would have been a lot of cancelations or mandated vaccines for ultra events and other outdoor activities. Unfortunately this has not been the case. I get it, we all want it to be over. But that is not reality.

The second one was I deferred my entry to the Leadville 100 until next year. Knowing what I know of how the virus spreads and what it can do to the human body, it did not make much sense to go and compete in an event at the height of an ongoing Pandemic. I know we all wanted to think it was done by the middle of May but unfortunately that has not been the case. By the time you are reading this blog post, booster shots will have been approved, mask mandates will have come back, and dinning or practically doing anything indoors will not be safe again. AND due to the significantly increased transmissibility of the Delta variant, outdoor events with large crowds will have a higher risk than what they did this time last year.

A couple of book reviews and a piece of art work before wrapping things up. The first book I would like to talk about is called “Power, Sex, Suicide: Mitochondria and the Meaning of Life” by Nick Lane. Let me start off by saying this book contains a lot of information. I mean a lot of information. It is one of those that you need to read a section and let it digest, maybe reread it, and then move on. There has been a lot of research in molecular biology over the last 20 years and a great deal has been on mitochondria. I could say that is what this book is about in a nutshell but that would be doing it an injustice. The book is about how mitochondria came to be and in the “process of discovery” the book covers so much more. Why do mitochondria have their own genes? What role did they play in the evolution of complex life? What do mitochondria have to do with sexual reproduction? What role do they play in aging and death? Nick does a great job in answering these questions and many more. The book is very thought provoking. I got the book as an audio book but I am thinking of getting the paperback version to read and listen at the same time to get a better understanding.

The book was released in 2005 and then a second edition in 2019. I am guessing this was due to new research that has come to light.

Nick Lane is a Biochemist and writer. He is a professor in evolutionary biochemistry at the University College London. To learn more about Nick visit this site: https://nick-lane.net/

You can find this book on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Power-Sex-Suicide-Nick-Lane-audiobook/dp

The next book I would like to talk about is called the “The Three-Body Problem.” It is a science fiction book by the Chinese writer Liu Cixin. It is set against the backdrop of China’s Cultural Revolution in which alien contact is achieved in secret. But not in the usual way. A complex story with some interesting twist. Some readers will have a little difficulty with the book if you are not familiar with some of the history of China’s Cultural Revolution. I got lucky and had finished a “Great Courses Course” on China a few months before reading the book. I find it interesting to see how other cultures deal with the ideas and writing of Science Fiction and just the drama of everyday life. It is like comparing European TV to American TV. There is a huge difference in the approach of telling a story. If you keep this in mind I think most people would enjoy the book. I got it as an audiobook.

Liu Cixin is a prominent Chinses science fiction writer. He is a nine-time winner of China’s Galaxy Award and has also received a Hugo Award. If you would like to learn more about his writer please visit this link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liu_Cixin

You can find the book on Amazon: Amazon.com: The Three-Body Problem (Audible Audio Edition): Cixin Liu, Luke Daniels, Macmillan Audio: Audible Books & Originals
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Well last but not least one piece of art work before I go. It is a second drawing in pen and ink of what things would be like if we could see with the naked eye at the quantum scale. I have been listening to science lectures on particle and quantum physics and I have wondered what would all those Photons, Bosons, Gluons, Leptons, and Quarks look like if you could actually see them up close. Would you see all the connections that hold them together? The quantum glue so to speak. I tried to capture what this might look like if you could see it all on that level with the naked eye.

This drawing is done in pen and ink and is protected with a traditional picture frame and glass. It measures approximately 12 inches wide by 15 inches tall.

I call the piece below “Quantum Goulash 2.”

This piece and others are for sale and can be found on my Etsy site: https://www.etsy.com/shop/strugglingprotoplasm/edit?ref=seller-platform-mcnav

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Well another blog post done! I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did writing it. I have to be honest and say I feel that there is a little bit of “catharsis” for me in writing one. And there is a sense of accomplishment in the process too. It feels good. I get to explain my thoughts on certain subjects, show case some of my art work, and in general to practice a little bit of writing. Writing in my opinion is the most important part of the process. This is where I get to start the exercises of thinking things through, consolidating my thoughts, and maybe getting a better understanding of the world around me and my reaction to it.

“Instead of wondering when your next vacation is, maybe you should set up a life you don’t need to escape from.” Seth Godin

Before I go I need to give the usual shout out to minimalism. Have you ever taken a vacation thinking that you needed this to unwind from your usual lifestyle and when you get back to reality, it does not take long and you are already dreaming about your next vacation?! What gives?? Reread the above quote by Seth Godin. When I first saw it years ago, it kind of stopped me in my tracks. The very idea of it, that we could design a lifestyle that is our “vacation” so to speak? Well you can and minimalism is one way to do this. It is just a change in mindset. Nothing to buy, nothing to purchase, just a change in how you look at your life and the world. Curious?? A good place to start is here: https://www.theminimalists.com/minimalism/

So take care my friends and if you have not gotten vaccinated then get it done. No excuses. If you are reading this blog then I want to definitely keep you around. Not that I would not care about you if you didn’t, but you know what I mean. The Delta Variant is not a laughing matter, not that any part of Covid is a laughing matter, but this variant is a whole new ballgame. Don’t think otherwise. And for those of us that have been vaccinated, we are going to need a booster, so plan on it. We all need to come to the realization that the plans we made in May and June or before for later this year, will need to be amended or changed or canceled due to the rise of this variant. Or this “Groundhog Day Covid Marry-Go-Round” will continue…

“May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous…, leading to the most amazing views.” Edward Abbey