Run on the Mountain

This is one of the prettier places we run--about twice a week.

Fair and Balanced

Sad, outrageous, contemptible.

Olde Miama

You need to check this out for a blast from the distant past.

Where are the snows of yesteryear?

CSI Tediosity

I realize I'm in some kind of major minority here, but I simply can't watch more than about 45 seconds of CSI or CSI Miami. It's not the actors. Oh, yeah, it's true, I don't care for the red-headed dude in the Miami show. Never have been a fan of his. His major acting skills seems to be taking his sunglasses off and putting them back on.

What I really don't like is the tediosity (which seems a better word than tediousness) of the science or pseudo-science. Gadgets, hocus pocus, rabbit out of the hat nonsense. It's storytelling that places an unnatural emphasis on the gadgetry rather than on human affairs that sends my bore-ometer clicking.

I feel the same way about films where something blows up every three minutes. The human dimension is quickly lost in all that wreckage and in all those fireballs.

And while I'm taking on genres, add police procedurals to the list. I know there are good ones (like Michael Connelly, or even John Sanford's Lucas Davenport series, which I do like). But by and large I find them deadly dull. I'd rather watch Law and Order--spend a while with the cops, then a while with the lawyers. At least there's some variety. But police procedures all seem to plod with great tediosity from one bureaucratic step to the next.

Everyone plays by the book at least to some extent. Now when Elmore Leonard writes about cops he tries to do his research and get it all right (at least his researcher Gregg Sutter gets it right). But Dutch never gets bogged down in all the procedural muck and mire. While so many cops, ex-cops and crime reporters turned novelists seem to be more fascinated by the mechanics of police departments than with the more human elements. Tediosity.

James Lee Burke is one of the good ones. Even though Dave R. is a cop and follows procedure (more or less, usually less) it is never at the expense of creating a rich place and a rich cast of characters. In other words, his stories are not ABOUT procedure, while so many other cop novels seem hopelessly bogged down in the realism of the way it works in a police department or with the FBI or with the state police or with the bomb team, or with the hostage negotiators. When a writer's research becomes more important than the people within the story, then the novel turns into veiled non-fiction.

A little cop realism goes a long way.





Personally, I'd rather get the people right than the procedure. Writing about crime is one thing, but writing about evil is quite another.

Info Snacking and Attention Spans

Thanks Ken for this Info-Snacking link.

Sometimes It Happens

I don't remember seeing this at the time. But sometimes it happens that a writer/reader/critic exactly nails all the things I worked so hard to achieve. Here's one of those times.

A Little Politics

In this political season, an urgent plea to take this one very seriously.

For Science's Sake

As anyone who has played the game knows, tennis can be dangerous. I've had this happen twice in fifty years. I remember both times very vividly.

Carolina Spring

It's been beautiful in western Carolina this spring. The dogwoods are justing finishing their blooming season and the azaleas are waning too, but a new crop of rhododendrons is just starting to flare up along our driveway.



I understand it's 95 degrees and smoky in Miami.

Saturday Morning Rituals

I took the camera along today on our early morning rituals, and this is the result.

I was up at 4:30, which is pretty normal for me. About the time my university students are going to bed. I wrote for an hour or so, then Evelyn and I headed out for a run on the Greenway Trail in Boone. It's the only flat running I do all week. The rest of the week we run at Moses Cone park where the trails are fairly steep, maybe a thousand foot change in two to three miles. We usually go up for the first half, down for the second. Those endorphins are really kicking in on the last twenty minutes or so.

It was in the lower 40's here today, a cloudy start to what is turning out to be a beautiful day. The hardest part of this run on the Greenway Trail is that it's all on asphalt. The pounding is pretty hard on the joints after six days of running on nice soft pine needle paths.

But the trail is pretty. You'll see the path meanders beside the Wautaga River. There are three bridges to cross, and nice meadows. That early in the morning (about 6:30) there were only a couple of other joggers. And it was cold for this Florida boy.







After the Saturday runs we usually go to the farmer's market where you can find some great locally grown produce and baked goods. Featured in the hello-blog section below are a couple of the wonderful women we've gotten to know over the last few years. The first sell goat cheese that's absolutely wonderful, and the second makes whole wheat bagels (cinnamon and raisen are my favorite) that makes our Saturday morning breakfast the best of the week. We also buy fresh eggs and great strawberries and salad greens.