In a decent mood lately. Why? Why oh why, if only I could bottle the recipe.

Eating blueberries with waffles every morning. The waffles have crushed walnuts and flax meal in them. And broke down and been adding an egg.

I over did the running. Was doing 12 miles three times a week at no slower than 10 minutes / mile with the last couple miles really hard every other time. This is the first time such relatively slow running ever caused knee problems, although clearly I've something up with my right knee that I ought to get checked out. And it's taking longer to get better. Now 4 days out. Sure I could run if I had to. I can push off just fine. It's any kind of twisting that's the problem...

I bought a elliptical for cross training. Going to try to run less often and hopefully the elliptical will have good crossover....

Still avoiding alcohol lately. Occasional (not daily) beer. No wine. No headaches.

In the middle of a 9 day home vacation.

Just finished The Mote in God's Eye by Niven and Pournelle, which I guess I enjoyed and maybe is mainly why I'm in a good mood???? It's a guilty enjoyment. Quite silly. I think much sillier than fantasy/dragons/elves/etc. Yet the one guy has at least 4 masters degrees, etc.

With (good) fantasy you simplify technology and people to escape to a simpler world, yet hopefully get down to some basic truths about existence. You make sense of an otherwise pointless existence. It's an almost religious thing.

With ("good") sci fi you simplify people while adding in nerdy sci fi ideas and I guess say, "oh cool, neato!" I think back in the 50's, 60's, 70's, maybe 80's... but then increasingly less so, there was this hope. The possibilities seemed limitless. Now we've basically shut down the space program. And our big inventions have been internet phones. The sci fi predictions have fallen so so short. The "cool neato!" thing is gone to a large extent. And it's kind of a silly idea compared to what fantasy fiction at least can potentially be anyway.

But I eventually got into The Mote because of the alien viewpoint. Which of course is another part of "sci fi". The part Vance claimed to be interested in. He called it... sociological fiction?? I think. You can go through a magic door or a space ship to get to the alien/other culture. I got into it. Still silly though.

Also The Telling by LeGuin. I don't even remember what the ending was now.... Somewhat abrupt ending. Oh yes, these people on this world got it all wrong. Trying to squash the "backward" ways of a mostly neighboring culture as they enter into the Ekumen with all it's interstellar technology. It's really a pretty straightforward and obvious thing. Hardly any plot and her point is pretty obvious. Perhaps a reply to militant atheists? But in a strawman way. Not that I'm a atheist anyway.