We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
I take so many photos, and there are so many beautiful and important sites and sights to see in Paris and the Loire Valley and in Israel, that I've chosen only some from the recent trip with my sons that have the most impacts on me. Please see below the fold.
Since it was a bit of a hiking weekend, I decided to consider the topic from a health and fitness standpoint rather than from a fun and adventure standpoint. What I will say generally applies to all aerobic activities (ie rowing, biking, swimming, etc).
- First off, most articles we search discuss these topics in terms of weight loss and calorie-burning. That is nonsense. Unless you devote several hours/day to these things with a carb-restricted diet, they will do nothing for your fat. Let's take that off the table and accept that body fat is about nutritional choices and nothing else.
- Second, we are talking about things which are often referred to as "cardio" fitness and cardio training. They really are not cardio training without the high heart rate which can not be attained for healthy people through walking or jogging. Similarly for skeletal muscle strength. For general endurance, good. True "cardio training" entails repeated anaerobic sprints of almost any activity (often termed HIIT. You can do HIIT with kettlebell swings, wall ball slams, road-sprints, sprint pool laps, or anything that stresses the heck out of you for 30-60 seconds). 15-20 minutes (including rests) of HIIT accomplishes far more for cardio fitness than an hour of aerobic activity.
Third, recreational hiking, jogging, swimming, biking, rowing are more the happy rewards of fitness than stimuli to increased fitness. I can hike 10 miles because I am somewhat fit, not to become fit. Nonetheless, they are the sorts of things that distinguish an "active" person from a "sedentary". "Sedentary" roughly refers to a person with less than 8-10 hours/week of intentional, vigorous physical activity (not strolling, or housework or easy stuff), or less than 6 hours of high-intensity physical activity/week. A good measure of "high-intensity" is that you are short of breath most of the time.
- Except for newbies, the elderly, or the infirm, the above relatively low-intensity aerobic activities (I hesitate to term them "exercise" because they lack the high exertion component) are just fine for maintaining mobility and endurance for casual activities. They do not increase fitness once you can do them. Any healthy person can walk 10 miles, jog 3-5 miles, or swim a mile of laps. Still, aerobic endurance is a handy thing for life enjoyment.
- Walking and jogging put the same lower-body muscles to use. Both are easy on the hamstrings, which can lead to a muscle imbalance if jogging is your only activity. Anyway, these are not strength-builders or meaningful cardio training (because there is not a high-enough cardio stress once you have adapted to them).
- Jogging on cement or asphalt on a daily basis will come back to your joints at some point. For "long, slow", once/week is enough for a fit person who works out daily in other ways along with recreational physical activities such as sports. Running is speedy jogging with a long stride and sprinting is sprinting.
Below, you already know this: there was no intelligence supporting Trump-Russia collusion. So why was there any investigation? What cabal set that up to weaken Trump? And why?
You've all seen photos and newsreels from the liberated concentration camps of fields and piles and small mountains of starved barely alive and dead bodies, and the anguished faces on many that are discernible. I won't repeat them here. Instead here's some photos that dramatize some of the background to the "final solution".
Not all went to the camps, many resisted, and some in the camps found the courage to rebel.
After the war, efforts were made to rehabilitate some survivors. Here's a photo of some crippled children being engaged in dirt lot games to build their strength back and their minds away from the horrors they'd encountered.
A short walk from Yad Vashem, Holocaust museum and memorials, is Mt Herzl military and founders cemetery.
I was asked today why I took a hike around Brooklyn. To non-readers of Maggie's, the answer isn't easy since I prefer to blog with a pseudonym and try to keep work and blogging separated, for a variety of reasons.
However, the answer I give is that I enjoy history, architecture, art history, and the company of people who enjoy these things as well. While the original hike was an attempt to meet some of our readers (and a chance for me to meet our editor for the first time), we knew just walking around aimlessly wasn't going to suit people's purposes.
After working with Bird Dog to put the first walk together, I began having some fun actually finding interesting and wacky things to look at around New York City. I saw a question in an open forum on another site which asked "What are some things about New York that nobody knows about and I should go see?" I felt qualified enough to answer that question, and most of the Maggie's hikers - certainly any who have gone on all four - should also feel qualified. As Bird Dog asked while we stood in front of a townhouse completely covered in mosaics, "Where do you find this stuff?" Most of it I've found just by scouring the internet. Places like Untapped Cities, Atlas Obscura, and New York Historical Society are obvious starting points. It's strange to say "places" for a virtual location, but our virtual world is an addition to our real one, and it should be used in that fashion. For many it is just a place to escape from reality, through games or social engines. That's fine. But it is also an amazing learning tool that is often underutilized.
Within those starting points, we can spin off further. Following links within articles which lead to stories about locations and art. Even the social engines are useful. Mrs. Bulldog, after all, found our DUMBO/Manhattan Bridge picture location because she is on Instagram and saw it was one of the best photo locations. Interestingly enough, her research on that also led to the addition of the Commandant's House (late editing note: when we visited this, I merely said the Commodore of the Navy Yard lived here. This was not incorrect, however, I missed that Commodore Matthew C. Perry, who opened Japan and whose flag was displayed on the USS Missouri during the signing of documents ending WWII, lived there), the Prison Ship Martyrs Monument, and the Old Stone House. So even social media is useful in doing research, though we often malign it as useless.
Ultimately, it's good fun, it's great exercise (I was very stiff the next day, not sore), and it's a chance to socialize and learn from our surroundings and our fellow travelers. An annual mini-Canterbury Tales, if you will. A pilgrimage to nowhere in particular, except to exercise our bodies and minds.
Thank you all, again, for joining and looking forward to next year. I'm thinking Upper Manhattan. The Cloisters, Mother Cabrini, the High Bridge, Morris-Jumel Mansion, the old Polo Grounds, Battle of Harlem Heights, etc. Northern Manhattan is walkable today (it certainly wasn't in 1985, when I first moved here). If we're lucky, maybe take a gander at Yankee Stadium, even though it's not the original.
Never Forget, Never Again as regards the Holocaust don't have the power they once had, as ethnic cleansing and mass murders continue and no one seems to really care or make the sacrifices to stop them.
My two sons and I just returned from Paris and Israel, where we had my younger son's Bar Mitzvah at the Western Wall. We had spent the previous days in the Negev. I said to my son at his Bar Mitzvah: You've just experienced a bit of what Jews endured in the desert for 40-years of wandering, and you are at the Wall to where for almost two-thousand years Jews prayed to return to while suffering dispersion and persecutions, so the significance of you benefiting from countless generations of faith and perseverance is highly significant to your entry into Jewish manhood, into the community of Jews who may read from and learn from the Torah and learned writings, and sacrifice to continue Judaism and Israel for another milenium and more.
In another post I will put up some cheerier photos from the Paris area and Israel. Here I will post some photos about the Holocaust and the significance of Israel's creation, reincarnation 70-years ago. Never Forget, Never Again. I am now 70, have grown up along with modern Israel, I've been to Israel three times, 24-years ago, five years ago, and now. The hard work and dedication and brilliance keeps astounding me as new archaelogic discoveries, modern structures, diverse culture, and striving people spring up and overflow as from a cornucopia. Tourism is at an all-time high. Everyone I've ever met, of any background, comes away awestruck. I doubt that I'll be in Israel again. I've Bar Mitzvahed my two sons in Jerusalem, and have many places yet to travel on my punch list (going to Mexico City area in July) before my final rest.
Just a very few photos. First France. From Israel in a following post:
This was an-all NYC weekend for us. A splendid, uplifting weekend all-round. Glorious. Took a daughter and her boyfriend to see the Met's Thomas Cole show today after an early morning 4 mile mini-urban hike with my sis and her hubbie to loosen up stiff muscles from yesterday's hike (with evil Starbucks break this morning). Good informative show and ran into good family friends there serendipitously so the kids had to catch up and chat too-loudly in the museum. Saw his Oxbow painting of a sight which all drivers up and down Rte 91 near Northampton have seen.
At lunch, the good boyfriend told us that he, his dad, and his uncle will participate with 1400 people in this year's The Great Saunter on May 5th. It's a 32-mile all-day Manhattan hike. This event is new to me, but I love the idea. By comparison, our hikes are Little Saunters. 32 miles would be a challenge for me now but, dammit, I would finish it if I had to crawl. I have a friend who had to crawl a mile to finish the Hawaii Ironman triathlon a few years ago. His wife was proud of him.
There is nothing healthier than taking on things to dispel our self-esteem despite the ego-protective temptation to hide and avoid them. Into life, outside the comfort zone. Here are some of the things that work well:
- Socializing with high-achieving, highly life-competent witty people - Taking a calisthenics/fitness class at the gym - Taking the Great Courses Intro to Calculus or Intro to Immunology Class and discover your IQ limits - Joining a Bible, or classical music/opera study group and discover your ignorance and lack of insight - Accepting the duty of running a small volunteer organization - Inspecting your naked body carefully in a mirror - Reflecting on one's mortality and what good one will have left behind - Taking an advanced yoga class - Try to get your book published - Go to a new city or woods without a GPS and make yourself get lost - Reach out to befriend somebody you feel is smart, fun and interesting, and get the brush-off - Learn a new sport or skill from scratch - Go on a job search - Get into weight-lifting
I welcome your suggestions for deeper humility in the comments -
This was not the longest hike we've had, or so I thought. After reviewing the last three, I came to realize I'd bitten off a bigger chunk of steak than realized. We clocked in at just over 11 miles, and prior to yesterday, 10 was the longest. For some reason I had believed our hike two years ago was closer to 13 miles when in fact it wasn't even 9.5.
Despite this, we were on target for time during the first half, but fell behind on the second. Each site had a longer trek involved,and there were a lot of lights along the way. In addition, wrangling 25 people (the largest group yet) was not easy. Still, 8 people didn't continue past lunch (as expected) and a few other left midway through the second half. We had a solid core of hardy trekkers at the finish. Unfortunately, I made the tragic error of not checking to see if the water taxi was running. It was not. We are all very thankful for Citibike (the three who rode bikes back into Manhattan were the big winners!) and Uber (a cheap drive back into Manhattan from Red Hook).
As always, an enjoyable group. We renewed friendships from previous years' hikes, made some new ones, and I even learned my cousin and his friends have never seen Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, despite one of his friends working for Pinkerton. Kids these days!
Mrs. Bulldog and I enjoyed a cocktail with two of our fellow trekkers at Ryan Maguire's, near where we'd parked. We commented what a pleasant and interesting group of people we did these hikes with. Everyone is open to chat, friendly, full of fun and information. Good people, no microagressions were noticed, no need for safe spaces.
One thing I did not factor into the hike at all was the Battle of Long Island, also known as the Battle of Brooklyn. I really didn't think there was much left to look at. I was wrong. We did run into several items which discussed the battle and its locations. A plaque on a bank, just after lunch, indicated the spot Washington had used to observe the battle as it began down in Gowanus (then the Guan Heights) and the Old Stone House had more information about the holding action a Maryland regiment had engaged to allow the Continental Army to escape. I'm an old dog, but still learning new tricks.
Thank you all for putting up with my error regarding 7 Middagh Street. Where I'd first said it was the location of the Plymouth Church, on the ride home I was sorting through my notes and found I'd flipped addresses and that it was actually the location of a home which was shared (over time) by W.H. Auden, Gypsy Rose Lee, Carson McCullers, Paul & Jane Bowles, and Richard Wright. Thankfully, my error was offset by a wonderful view of lower Manhattan and New York Harbor - so plenty of picture opportunities. In fact, we did hit Plymouth Church two stops later, so we didn't miss anything at all.
Several intriguing spots were missed on the second half, and that's fine. It was getting late, and we had to get the (not in service) water taxi. But we did finish, found a great dive bar (Sonny's) that was unfortunately considered by many to be a great dive bar...it was far too crowded.
All in all, a fun day. Pictures below of the Manhattan Bridge (Mrs. Bulldog pointed out it's the most heavily posted picture on Instagram, and judging by the crowds clogging the street at 10:30, she was right), the Prison Ship Martyrs Monument in Fort Greene Park, and the Williamsburgh Bank Tower (once the highest building in Brooklyn).
It's easy to see why the DUMBO picture of the Manhattan Bridge is so popular...
We had a jolly crew of 25 yesterday on our group hike. Thanks to all who joined us to make it a congenial and amusing event. We didn't get lost, thanks to our fearless leader Bulldog, but occasionally stragglers would make a wrong turn which always led to interesting things. Cell phones are handy. On the loveliest day of the year thus far, we began by assembling downtown near Manhattan's financial district, passing by City Hall, then marching over the Brooklyn Bridge into the Brooklyn wilderness. We covered 11 miles on cement = stiff quads.
Events like this - new adventures, new explorations, new pals, new cozy pizza joints - create the memories that enrich us and will sustain us when we can no longer do them.
I can't look at the Freedom Tower without images of the WTC on fire coming to mind and feeling furious with the barbarians. This is looking back to Manhattan from the bridge's walkway. I'll post more pics later in the week.
Good advice, but it's also always a good idea to sense when somebody is tired of taking to you. Sorry to say, they probably are. On both ends, short and sweet is best in most cases unless you are lucky enough to get a truly lively and jovial interaction going.
A friend recently extended his driveway to put in a Pickleball court. The game is like a cross between tennis, ping-pong, paddle tennis, etc. It looks like this:
Was Kelo decided rightly or wrongly? The Supremes decided the case against Mrs.Kelo and her little pink house 5-4. Naturally, the little people of the USA were horrified by the decision which indicated that a local government could take your property for the use of a private business.
I wander'd lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils; Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. Continuous as the stars that shine And twinkle on the Milky Way, They stretch'd in never-ending line Along the margin of a bay: Ten thousand saw I at a glance, Tossing their heads in sprightly dance. The waves beside them danced; but they Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay, In such a jocund company: I gazed -- and gazed -- but little thought What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie In vacant or in pensive mood, They flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude; And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils.
Ignoring Frigid Winter,
Since it was a bit of a hiking weekend, I decided to consider the topic from a health and fitness standpoint rather than from a fun and adventure standpoint. What I will say generally applies to all aerobic activities (ie rowing, biking, swimming, etc).
Daffodils