Monthly Archives: March 2021

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

MUSINGS FOR FRIDAY 26TH, MARCH 2021

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“Not one of your pertinent ancestors was squashed, devoured, drowned, starved, stranded, stuck fast, untimely wounded, or otherwise deflected from its life’s quest of delivering a tiny charge of genetic material to the right partner at the right moment in order to perpetuate the only possible sequence of hereditary combinations that could result – – eventually, astoundingly, and all too briefly – – in you.” Bill Bryson

This image was taken on February 28th, 2011. It is of astronaut Alvin Drew. Here he is doing maintenance work on the ISS (International Space Station). In this 6 hour and 34 minute space walk, Alvin and fellow astronaut Steve Bowen installed a power cable and removed a failed ammonia pump module among other things. They flew to the station on the Space Shuttle Discovery. It was the 39th and final flight for Discovery. Image credit: NASA. To learn more about this image and the mission please visit these sites: https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/alvin-drew-down-to-earth and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-133

“There is something infantile in the presumption that somebody else has a responsibility to give your life meaning and point… The truly adult view, by contrast, is that our life is as meaningful, as full and as wonderful as we choose to make it.” Richard Dawkins

This is an image on Mars of part of the Jezero Crater. The image is thought to be an ancient river delta that was produced by water flowing into a lake that once filled the crater. It is a possible path for the Perseverance rover in its search for fossilized life on Mars. To get a reference for size, the large crater in the center of the image is about 1/2 mile across. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/USGS. To learn more about this image please visit these links: https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/traversing-mars-jezero-crater and https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/mission/science/landing-site/

“When religion talks about our aspirations and sense of morality, I do not believe that science can contradict it. However, when religion contradicts science on matters of fact, religion must yield.” Frank Wilczek

This is an image that is a composite of X-ray (blue and green) and optical (red) light of the galaxy NGC1068 or Messier 77. It was discovered by Pierre Mechain in 1780. The X-ray light is coming from an active supermassive black hole, also known as a quasar, in the center of the galaxy. The galaxy is 47 million light-years away in the constellation of Cetus. Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/MIT/UCSB/P.Ogle et al.; Optical: NASA/STScI/A.Capetti et al. To learn more about this image please visit these links: https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/reflections-from-a-black-hole and https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/nustars-view-of-galaxy-ngc-1068

“I would rather have questions that can’t be answered than answers that can’t be questioned.” Richard P. Feynman

This image taken in 1974 shows Mary W. Jackson (second from right, bottom row) with her colleagues in the High Speed Aircraft Division at the Langley Research Center in Virginia. In 1958 she became NASA’s first African American female engineer. Her character was played by Janelle Monae in the movie Hidden Figures. Image credit: NASA. To learn more about this image and about Mary please visit these links: https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/mary-w-jackson-nasas-first-female-african-american-engineer and https://www.nasa.gov/content/mary-w-jackson-biography

“Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.” Isaac Asimov

This is an image of Kelly J. Latimer. She was a research pilot in the Flight Crew Branch of NASA’s Dryden (now Armstrong) Flight Research Center in 2007. She was the center’s first female research test pilot. She accumulated more than 5,000 hours of military and civilian flight experience in 30 different aircraft. Image Credit: NASA/Tony Landis To learn more about his image and Kelly please visit these sites: https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/kelly-latimer-drydens-first-female-research-test-pilot and https://www.nasa.gov/centers/armstrong/about/biographies/pilots/kelly-latimer.html

“The universe is a pretty big place. It’s bigger than anything anyone has ever dreamed of before. So if it’s just us… seems like an awful waste of space. Right?” Ellie Arroway (Contact 1997)

This is a 2003 image of Joan Higginbotham. She was selected as an astronaut candidate in 1996 and began her career at NASA in 1987 as an electrical engineer at the Kennedy Space Center. Joan logged over 308 hours in space having completed her first mission with the crew of STS-116. A Space Shuttle mission to the ISS (International Space Station). This was on the Space Shuttle Discovery. She was also assigned to the STS-126 mission but took a job in the private sector prior to departure. To learn more about his image and Joan please visit these links: https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/electrical-engineer-and-nasa-astronaut-joan-higginbotham and https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/higginbotham_joan.pdf

“For those who believe in God, most of the big questions are answered. But for those of us who can’t readily accept the God formula, the big answers don’t remain stone-written. We adjust to new conditions and discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not be a command nor faith a dictum. I am my own god. We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state, and our educational system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.” Charles Bukowski

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

If you are reading this then you have continued to survived Covid 19, so far, and so have I!! That my friends is an excellent thing for both of us. And I am hoping that I can continue to say this in the coming months.

Now with that said, what is it with Texas, Mississippi, Iowa, Montana and North Dakota dropping their mask mandates? Of course they are joining 11 other states that did not have mask mandates to begin with – Alaska, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota and Tennessee. I am wondering how much disability and death this will create in the coming months? Even the CDC director Rochelle Walensky was advising against this reckless behavior.

This map was accurate as of March 4th, 2021.

Looking at the numbers on Monday 8th, March 2021, the death count for the country had already climbed 18,000 deaths since the publication of the last blog post on February 26th – a total of only 9 days. Wow! And not in a good way. Therefore the count at the start of this blog was approximately 538,000. Who would you guess were the leading states?? Of course, it was California (54,000), New York (48,000) and good old Texas (45,000). It is interesting to note that Texas has now pulled to within 3000 of New York.

By the middle of the month, we were still adding 50 to 60 thousand new cases each day in the country. This was significantly down from November, December 2020 and January 2021, but still higher than where we were in April, May, and September of last year. And this does not take into account what will be going on in Texas or Florida by the middle of April 2021 due to the “Spring Break” shenanigans. And for that matter the rest of the country. I have a bad feeling about this and it would not surprise me that we have another spike in cases before the start of summer. Especially with the new Covid variants. Oh well time will tell.

By the time of publishing this blog post, the numbers were 560,000 + deaths for the country. That is an increase of 22,000 deaths in the last 18 days. As large as that number sounds, it is significantly down from previous months, a very good thing. But we will have to see what April and May brings. Interesting to note that we are adding 60,000 + new cases each day at the end of March.

If you are interested in the numbers yourself take a look at these links: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ and https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html

Well it has been 11 weeks since I got the second shot of the Pfizer Vaccine for Covid and…. so far there are no side effects for me. I have seen some post on social media putting out false information on possible adverse reactions, but when you investigate them deeper you realize there is no validity to them. That is for the Pfizer-BioNtech and Moderna vaccines.

The only possible significant “side effect news” in the middle of March was the adverse reaction of “blood clotting” with the AstraZeneca vaccine. It is more of a traditional vaccine, in that it uses a modified adenovirus in conjunction with genetic material from the actual Covid virus.

Several European countries have halted the use of the vaccine until the possibility is investigated further. Of the 17million that got the shot only 40 have developed blood clots. So, if it is related to the vaccine, then it is very rare. This vaccine was not approved in the United States as of March 16th, 2021. It is interesting to note that more than 70 countries worldwide have been using it until recently. Hopefully it will turn out that the “blood clotting issue” was just a coincidence, or worse case scenario a “bad batch” of vaccines. If your interested to learn more about this vaccine check out the link: https://www.verywellhealth.com/astrazeneca-oxford-covid-19-vaccine-5093148

(Note: At the time of publishing, the above decision to halt the use of AstraZeneca vaccine had already been reversed.)

There is a web site called VAERS – Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System. It is co managed by the CDC and FDA. It covers all vaccines, not just Covid. It is a system for collecting reports of adverse events (possible reactions) associated with getting a vaccine. You can check it out at this link: https://vaers.hhs.gov/ If it is not listed in this data base as a possible side effect, then it is probably false.

Well that is probably enough about Covid, so on to something different. February was… well lets just say it was challenging for doing outdoor activities like running. Much, much more so than January. The two main reasons for this were the temperatures and the air quality. By the middle of February, there was a two week period that the high temps were in the single digits to low teens everyday and at night they dropped below zero. But this was not the main issue with being outdoors. You can always add more layers?! Right?? Lol. The main reason was due to degraded air quality. Let me explain.

This picture was taken on Tuesday 2nd, February 2021 at about 6pm in the evening. Here I am looking across “Lake Sherwood” in my neighborhood. And yes it really is named “Lake Sherwood.” Lol. The first week of February did see a warm up in temperatures at first but then the bottom dropped out in the second week. The warm temperatures at the start of February made for some excellent running.

One of the reasons that we get this cold weather that lingers day after day is how it sets up on the Front Range of Colorado. Once a deep pocket of cold air moves into the area with dominating high pressure, the pocket of cold has a tendency, due to topography of the mountains, to sit with very little wind movement at the base. This can allow for some very cold stagnate air to develop. Now some might look at the lack of wind as a good thing. Nothing like wind chill to make things a lot colder. Right? But it can be a real issue when it come to air quality.

This picture was taken Thursday 4th, February 2021 at about 4pm in the afternoon. This is looking south from one of my favorite “close by” trail running areas. It is a 2000+ acre open space behind Fort Collins called Horsetooth Mountain Park. It was a very nice day with temps in the 50s.

Most of Colorado’s population lives on the Front Range and we create a lot of pollution – mainly from automobile exhaust and burning wood in the winter. Now imagine all this pollution going into the air, day after day after day, with very little air movement.

This picture was taken Saturday 13th, February 2021 at about 5pm in the afternoon. The temps were defiantly on the low side. I believe it was about 10F degrees in this picture to single digits. Marvin and I were running in an open space called River Bend Ponds. From this point on, at least for the next week or so, things got much colder and the air quality took a noise dive.

Also as the ground temperatures drop the warmer air up top forms a cap so to speak and this keeps the pollution close to the ground, hence the development of the “Front Range Brown Cloud.” So besides having very cold temperatures to deal with, you also have pollutions issues that can be even worse. It does not take long for the air quality to really drop along the Front Range.

This picture was taken on Monday 15th, February 2021 at about 6pm in the evening. Janet and I were just finishing up a walk in the neighborhood before the air quality really started to drop. The temperature was close to zero when this picture was taken.

And that is what we experienced on multiple days here in February, poor air quality and cold temperatures. I used the purple air map to gauge the best time for outdoor activity. It was defiantly not early in the morning or late at night but usually between 2pm and 6pm. A four hour window where quality was not good but a little better than it would be at other times. Usually in the 50 to 60 ppm (parts per million) range. If you are interested in using the PurpleAir map you can find it at this link: PurpleAir | Real Time Air Quality Monitoring .

This was a perfect example of “morning air quality” during the coldest days in February. At night the numbers would go up into the 200+ range – unhealthy for most individuals. Unfortunately this is a trade off for living along the Front Range of Colorado. I am hoping in the future, using the above information, we will be able to legislate better air quality standards.

If you do not have any monitors in your area consider purchasing one. Having this information is powerful. It will protect your health and when someone wants to put in a “dirty industry” that will degrade quality, you will have the information to take to City Hall so to speak.

Yea!! I got in and Oh No! I got in!! Lol. Now the real work begins….

Well on a different and much better note, I got picked in the Lottery for the Leadville Trail 100 Run! Yea I got in and OH NO I got in… Lol. I have attempted the 100 mile distance twice before. Once at Leadville and once at the Run Rabbit Run in Steamboat Springs. And both times I DNFed (Did Not Finish) at the 50 mile mark. I learned a lot at those first two attempts. Number one, I need better conditioning. Especially for the 100 mile distance and two, I need better conditioning. Lol. So here is to hoping that “the third time is the charm.” I am also hoping that the pandemic settles down even more as people get vaccinated. At least by next August. Oh well, again time will tell….

This picture was taken Tuesday 23rd of February, 2021 at about 6pm in the evening. Here I was looking across the frozen surface of a lake in the River Bend Ponds area. Single digits again but there was a little wind this day and the air quality had improved dramatically so I was out running with Marvin.

I did get a lot of cross training in for the month of February. Mainly doing a bike trainer and a rowing machine. And I threw in a little bit of Yoga each week and some weights. Even though I did not do as much running as I wanted to in February, I felt pretty good coming out of the month. And I think a lot of this was due to the crossing training, yoga and weights.

This picture was taken Sunday 28th, February 2021 at about 3pm in the afternoon. Janet took a selfie with Marvin and I just wanted to include it. By the last day of February the temps had warmed up significantly and the air quality improved dramatically.

If you want to learn more about Colorado’s climate and our temperature inversions check out these links from Colorado State University: http://climate.colostate.edu/climate_long.html and http://ccc.atmos.colostate.edu/pdfs/Nolan_TempInversions–Colorado(Jan9_2007)%20v2.pdf

A book review and some art work before wrapping things up. The book I would like to talk about is called Buddhism Without Beliefs written by Stephen Batchelor. When I was doing research a few years back on what Buddhism was all about, I came across information on what was included in early Buddhism. And more importantly, what was not. It seems over the centuries there has been a lot of stuff added. Especially to the religious and mystical side. I have always found this a little strange and disheartening. So when I came across Batchelor’s book I had to read it. And the book does not disappoint. Now I have to warn you that this is not a book for the new to Buddhism student, but one to read after you have digested a few of the more “Buddhism for Beginner” type books. The author takes a look at Buddhism as a way of life but not in a religious tone. It is a refreshing look at Buddhism with a secular point of view. I listened to the book as an audio book but I think I will also get it in paperback to reread. It is one of those books that you need to read a few times to truly understand the concepts better.

Stephen Batchelor is a British author and teacher. He has written several books on Buddhism from a secular point of view. For more information check out this link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Batchelor_(author)

You can find this book on Amazon at: https://www.amazon.com/Buddhism-Without-Beliefs-audiobook/dp

Well last but not least a few pieces of art work before I go. These are all pen and ink mounted on 1/2 in Archival mounting panels by “Art Boards”. All are sealed with varnish. Each panel measures 5.75 inches by 5.75 inches and are ready to hang. The back of each panel has a predrilled mounting hole/slot.

These started off as whimsical doodles one night while at the “day job” but quickly morphed into a fun exercise in catching emotion with simple stylized faces. I selected the three that I liked best and mounted them.

I think they work better together mainly because of their small size but could be fun to hang and look at individually.

Study in emotions using simple facial expressions panel A. Panel measures 5.75 inches by 5.75 inches and comes ready to hang.

Study in emotions using simple facial expressions panel B. Panel measures 5.75 inches by 5.75 inches and comes ready to hang.

Study in emotions using simple facial expressions panel C. Panel measures 5.75 inches by 5.75 inches and comes ready to hang.

Study in emotions using simple facial expressions. Each panel measures 5.75 inches by 5.75 inches and comes ready to hang.

These are all for sale and can be found on my Etsy site: https://www.etsy.com/shop/strugglingprotoplasm/edit?ref=seller-platform-mcnav All postage in the continental United States is included in the price.

Well that is going to be about it for me on this Blog post. Even though I have said this before, I am going to say it again. I hope you have given more thought to minimalism and how it could make a positive change in your life and in the world. If you think you might want to be part of that change, to make the world a much better place. I firmly believe that minimalism is one path to that ultimate goal. There is nothing to buy, just a change in mindset. To learn more please visit the web site: https://www.theminimalists.com/minimalism/

So take care my friends and remember to wash your hands, wear your mask when in crowds or indoors and practice physical distancing. And when a vaccine become available, please consider getting it. Adios!!

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