Found a better ball toss idea. The palm facing down with fingertip release wasn't any better. But I watched Kevin Anderson. He doesn't touch the ball with his fingers. Just keeps it in his palm and turns his wrist a bit at the release point. I tried it in the house and it seemed way way better. Like this will probably end my ball toss issues.

Lost to high school kid 6-4, 6-2. He was at least 6'7" and his first serve percentage was about 75%. Didn't hit any aces but plenty of pace. I returned ok but his groundstrokes were also quite good. My serve was terrible and my legs gave out after a while. Along with the ball toss issue I need to square up to the court more. Turning sideways was OK against Chi but that doesn't mean shit. Hate to say it but I think playing him is hurting my game. Stuff that works against him totally fails against better players. His lack of pace and lack of agility makes me think things can work that can't.

Last I played Chi I switched hands to dominant hand on top like Gene Mayer. Against this high school kid it just didn't seem like a great idea. Sometimes that left hand two hand forehand looks like I've only been hitting it a few hours (which is correct) as opposed to playing tennis probably for 15 years. So I played Santoro style but really I still want to make the switch. My backhand felt weak. Just getting it back. Also I think on the backhand the Murray grip is better than both base thumb knuckles on bevel 8. Murray style I'm more aggressive. Hit more winners while using the latter I mostly just get it back. On the other hand Murray style it starts breaking down after a while and I hit more errors. But at least it's good for a while Murray style.

The other possibility is switching to Gene Mayer style. The right sided "forehand" feels wrong when just swinging racquet in front of TV. But seems to do OK on the court. ..at least against Chi, which isn't saying much.

Son just vomited everywhere. He's been sick this last ten months of cow milk. Was fine with donated breast milk. That's it. Switching to oat/almond milk. Fucking wife is useless. I say we really ought to switch over and over and nothing ever happens, just like with so many other things. I don't want my son to go through life sick. Just threw all the milk away.

Additionally I was trying 80/20 training where I just did the last 20% hard (6 to 9 minutes). This was overtraining. Meant basically running a really hard mile everyday. Wanted to try because I want something really consistent that will go with tennis. Unfortunately it's a no go. Feel very overtrained. Resting heart rate yesterday was 80 (Should be low 60's at least). Maybe for now I'll just be erratic at tennis. Really like the idea of longer hard running (6 to 9 minutes). But clearly I can't do it everyday. I'm guessing about once every 3 days.... Will check heart rate.

Playing Skyrim a third time. This time using mainly magic. Wanted to use it as a jump into writing. Want to make like this other world running parallel to our own, just in my mind. Just this other place. It's a feeling that for now, really works for me. I can see it being useful for me whether or not it ever got published. But, I know, the feeling will probably fade quickly. But, still, I will try.

Continuing Anatomy of an Epidemic by Whitaker. It is sickening, disgusting. As evil as any holocaust. The concept of helping people utterly forgotten as people do whatever to try to keep their high paying jobs.

Finished The Lions of Al Rassan. Meh. OK. Virtually no magic. Had it's moments. Think the third person didn't help. Didn't feel real close to anyone. And a bit too happily ever after. Felt like no major character had any chance of actually dying. They made a big deal about a servant dying who barely spoke a word the whole story. Also they tried to make the two guys amazing but it was more of telling than showing.

Changed my running and tennis. Trying to make the switch to dominant hand on top of the racquet for groundstrokes. I guess for volleys too though not as sure about that. Better in theory. In practice don't hit on the right side as hard. Harder to get topspin so far. And on the left side it feels a little awkward, but there is more access to power and I can hit it good. Actually on the right side (the left handed two hand backhand) I hit it very good flat and as a two hand slice.

Was up on Chi 6-2, 4-1 this way. Doesn't work quite as well with doubles because have to hit a bit harder then. But OK still. Making this change why? Just get sick on my standard two hand backhand. Feel like it's immediately better on my right side than my left. Played the owner last week when not feeling well was up 7-6, 0-3. Had a game where I hit 4 backhand errors in a row. Just suspect I can become better with dominant hand on top. Gene Mayer is only one I know of who did this.

Also changed ball toss. Turned hand palm down so I don't roll the ball off my fingers at the release.

For running I'm trying to first do the easy running followed by the hard running every workout about 80/20. So 36 easy then 9 hard. Or 40/10 or 30/8, etc. I think longer intervals are better but I figured one can get overtrained easily. Also doing hard running every day, I may get overtrained. BUT, I'm still following 80/20, so possibly not. The very first day I had trouble doing 7.1 mph for 7 minutes. The next day it felt very easy and after a minute or so I went up to 7.2 and did 8 minutes. According to Fitzgerald just teaching your mind to handle the pain of this kind of running is important. With shorter faster intervals, your muscles simply give out. With tempo runs, you simply can't do them too often. But running for 7 to 10 minutes... Possibly I can do them often and just get my body used to flowing along for an extended period at a decent speed...

Reading Anatomy of an Epidemic by Robert Whitaker. Also gave a copy to B. She thinks she's close to mania. Book says long term outcomes are much worse with medications. That's the message. Extremely well written. Also reading her journals around back when she went manic in 2008. Very beautiful sentiments. Was trying to get closer to god. Sounds like she just pushed herself too hard. I don't believe that hardly anyone (if anyone) has a "broken brain". I think people go through too much in life and breakdown. I think it could have been just a one time thing but now with the anti-psychotic, etc medications she probably has some tardive psychosis possibly. Or in other words, the drugs have made relapse far more likely, along with leaving her fatigued and sometimes snowed under.

Gave up on To Ride Hell's Chasm by Janny Wurts 66% in. Farthest I've ever gone into one of her books. Big vocabulary. Very stilted interactions. Got sick of the phrase "desert born cur". Bad guys two-dimensional. Really belabors the point. Despite the big vocabulary strangely not descriptive in some ways. Felt like it was always night. But don't think that was a feel she was going for. That, I suppose, isn't remotely a bad thing. Just never really cared about anyone. No one felt like a real person. The way the king would have 2 minutes of lucidity every day or so was just silly. I made it much further than I otherwise would have because read it while running.

The hero being ordered to strip and lie down on a cot while awaiting a massuese (sp) in the middle of an investigation in a cellar was quite strange. Not much else to say. Moved a bit slow but the real problem was just not giving a damn about any of the characters.

Now reading The Lions of Al Rassan. by Guy Gavriel Kay. 35% in. Pretty good. Like the characters. They aren't stilted, strange and undeveloped. Tigana was good. Some viking book he wrote was OK.

Feel like I've been doing that 80/20 with the boring slow running forever. It hasn't even been 20 days.... Get impatient so quick and want to pick up the pace. Have been trying to run an hour on workdays before work. Longer on weekends. And some evenings doing incline walking on treadmill. 8% Heart rate about 130. I so want to jump up to 12%. And on to a weighted backpack. It's walking that I feel very impatient about.

Beat the owner of westview 6-2, 6-4. The 3 previous times I won 6-3, 6-4. Maybe I've improved a little. Seems like my groundstrokes have improved. My serve still needs a lot of work. Was OK against the owner but it was kind of bad 4 days later playing doubles. Maybe when I start trying to jump it starts falling apart. Gets a bit ragged. Lose power. Lost my serve a lot playing doubles. My teammate (Hannah) was ridiculous good and other than my serve I was pretty good. Particularly had a problem with them lobbing it into the corner over her head in the deuce serve and then I have to generate all my own power with a back kind of turned away from the court. I put it right to the net man at least three times.

Trying to make sure to hit the ROS flat and then here and there add topspin for the following shots on both sides. My return of serve is good. My groundstrokes are really doing well. Think the slow running is helping.

Read the free sample of ordered the paperback book (so B can borrow it) of Anatomy of an Epidemic by Robert Whitaker. Follow up to Mad in America. Seems like a very important book / subject.

Mad in America by Robert Whitaker
The treatment of the mentally ill in America is pretty awful. The main treatment in the last 70 years is to just partiallly destroy the patient's brain, nowadays by using drugs, in the past through lobotomies and many other methods. What has worked far better was simply being nice to the mentally ill. The Soteria Project in the 70's, the Quakers more than a hundred years ago, and something very recent in the lapland area of Finland are examples which went in such a direction and had far better results. Actually also something similar often occurs in the third world where the mentally ill are far less likely to be ruined by the drugs. All have had far better results than what has been done in America and Western Europe to a lesser extent.

Most recently the pharmaceutical industry has become very powerful and sophisticated. A number of dishonest studies have been pushed through by doctors who as a result literally own castles with moats, etc. Their drugs, which are only positive to the extent that they chemically lobotomize potentially dangerous psychotics (and that's an extremely small percentage of the mentally ill), are considered wonder drugs, and are now being given even to children.

It's the idiocracy. Like giving gatorade to plants. I almost am amazed that all these highly "educated" people could take part in such things. Then I remember my own experiences in academia.

Meh. I don't know what else to bother saying.

It's a really well done book. It's a world shattering sort of book. It could change people's views of the entire world, far beyond psychiatry, through seeing how FUBAR this particular area is. Because if all these PhDs and the prevailing status quo can actually be this wildly wrong in this day in age in psychiatry, what else might we be wrong about?

Well, a lot actually.

I'd recommend it to people, except that I don't actually know anyone whom I think has enough of a brain to actually read it.

And thus, what does it matter?

My list of most important nonfiction books.
In no particular order:
Manufacturing Consent by Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky
Contains a number of case studies where media bias is actually quantified. Explains the resulting (extreme rightwing) bias in a nonconspiratorial way.

Killing Hope by William Blum
The most comprehensive book about American Imperialism

Mad in America by Robert Whitaker
Simply being nice to the mentally ill works far better than drugs, lobotomies, electroshock therapies, drug induced seizures, diabetic induced comas, and many other barbaric "therapies". Furthermore the pharmaceutical industry lies about their patented drugs in order to maximize profits.

Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam
Quantifies a rather extreme increase in social isolation in America over the last century. Main culprits are the automobile, the TV and the internet.

Caffeine Blues by Stephen Cherniske
Caffeine is pervasive in our society and a lot more harmful than people realize. For some people even a cup of coffee a day has a wide range of harmful effects.

The China Study by Thomas Campbell
Meat, eggs and diary increases the risk of many diseases even in small quantities. The power of the companies which produce such products though has been highly influential in keeping this knowledge somewhat obscured.

I'd want to include a book about how one can be physically strong on a vegan diet. This link will have to suffice:
http://www.veganfitness.net/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=723&start=0

Anyway, these are some of the things I wish people knew a lot more about. Not that it matters. (Thank god/whoever).