Boys And Amateur Sociology

Boys. Not mine, we only have girls:

Lately I've been reminded of how awful boys of a certain age can be. That age? Not sure, probably middle school aged, though they could have been in a final bit of grade school or early grade in high school. Let's settle on middle schoolers as a working hypothesis.

I am a normal looking guy, neither especially geeky nor notably handsome. So, to young people I am usually invisible, which is fine for me and I presume, fine for them*. But lately on lunchtime jogs I have had kids yelling obscenities at me from their bus and even throwing things at me from the windows. I suppose some of the explanation is that they feel safe. The bus is too fast for me to catch and they have a certain kind of mob mentality when they are grouped-up like that. I suspect none of these young boys would dare accost me if we were both on foot. So there is a bit of cowardice in play.

But why do it in the first place? This is not something any friend or I ever did at that age. I think class plays a role here. My office is in Billerica, which is mostly working class but I run a lot in Bedford which is mostly professional people. I have never been accosted in the Bedford part of my runs, but frequently in Billerica. It is well known that college educated professionals have much lower divorce rates than those with less education and so it might just come down to an absence of fathers in the households of these nascent hooligans.

*To confirm this, I asked my daughter, who runs on her high school track team, about this. She indicated that whenever a school bus goes by when they are jogging, their running group gets a similar treatment. Our town of Chelmsford is probably intermediate class-wise between the above two towns. It is possibly even more socially unacceptable to insult young women as adult men, but certainly less physically dangerous.

Added: I think it may always have been thus. This musing made me recall an encounter I had almost thirty year's ago. I was shopping at a supermarket in Spokane--I did most of the grocery shopping and a fair amount of the cooking when I home for the Summer from college. I ran into a man I knew from my dad's days in the Washington ANG. This guy had been a pilot or navigator and when he retired from that, he became a middle school teacher. We spoke a long time about family and whatnot, but one thing really stuck with me. He said that, "boys leave the human race for a while' but he added, "they come back".

More Grilling and Efficient Use of Charcoal

A couple of weeks ago we grilled for 18 people: Yesterday there were a total of 24 for the Memorial Day BBQ.

I got three loads of food out of one charge of Kingsford briquettes: First, a full load of tandoori chicken--mostly lid closed to ensure doneness. When that was finished, a full load of shish kabobs was done--lid open to char the meat without over cooking it. Finally, a load of burgers, hotdogs and Italian sausage.

There were tons of desserts and side dishes too, but I had no role in those other than eating them!

Plenty of drinks were had as well: The usual beer and wine, but also an easy Summer cocktail we came up with last year:

1 glass with a few ice cubes in it.
1 shot of gin or white rum poured over the ice.
1/2 can of Pelligrino Orange or Lemon soda.

(To conserve soda, just make two of these at a time--one for you and one for a guest)

Crazy Saturday, sedate Sunday

The day started early; I had a race in Bedford NH which started at 9:00 AM. As is common on these grand prix events, lots of people from the running club meet at a shopping center and carpool up. I ended taking two other guys up with me.

The run was fine, I took a minute longer than the last time I ran it a couple of years ago but still finished with roughly the same placement. Results are here. What I found interesting is that, of the members of our running club (42 finishers) the group I drove up with finished together. On one hand, it is almost inevitable in that we are roughly the same speed, but from a statistical standpoint, highly unlikely to happen by chance.

On a normal Saturday, if I did a race, then the rest of the day would be mostly lazing about. This day, we had a bunch of visiting relatives coming over--there would be 18 people counting our own family. I had to neaten up the out of doors part of the place and that involved a hour or so of lawn mowing. And my gas-can was empty! Luckily I remembered that the snow blower tank was still full, so I drained that tank and used the gas in the lawn mower.

The rest of the house was set-up and then grilling commenced in the early afternoon. It all went well, but I felt like I was running on fumes from well before noon.

Update: Oh yes. On Sunday I didn't do jack squat. Heaven!

Museum of Natural History

An Emerald, almost as nice as mine.

1,000 Carat flawless aquamarine.

Looks like the brain of an evil genius--possibly a robot.

Is this Superman's house? AKA Fortress of Solitude

Brown Bear.

Conservatory (greenhouse)

Right in the same neighborhood as the Capitol, Supreme Court and Library of Congress is the National Conservatory. A nice break from all of those stuffy buildings with lines and security screenings.

Orchids

Our little family taken on an upper level catwalk by a friendly woman.

Cacao tree

Another orchid

Uncommon Valor

Groton Road Race

Place.....Name..............Time...Pace...Age...Place/Men....Place/age group
66.......David Pecchia.....44:14...7:08...49....62/253..........20/68

I don't think I have ever run this race as fast and yet I don't think I did as well as I have in the past. Here is last year's stats: I came in higher is a field that was slightly larger, came in 44th out of 284 men versus this year when I came in 62 out of only 253 and so forth. I think the key is that the median time this year was a whole minute faster than last year's race, so even though I took 30 seconds off of last year's time, it wasn't enough to maintain my rank.

Last year's stats:
Place----Name----------Time---Pace--Age--Place/Men----Place/age group
52-----David Pecchia---44:47--7:13--48---44/284-----------22/104

A Couple More I liked...

Art somewhere...

We went to a bunch of museums on Tuesday; the Freer, Sackler and the National Gallery, so I don't remember which this one was--I think the National Gallery.

Every once in a while I took a detail shot of a painting and it is well worth it, I really wish I had done more of that.

Out Of This World

In the center of the top circle is a little black dot. This is an actual rock from Earth's Moon. The window commemorates the mission to land on the Moon.

Streams of Light

You can almost picture the trillions of photons rushing in through this window.

I like the subtlety of president Washington's location here.

The real question is why this holy light does not scorch her skin.

National Cathedral, Washington DC

National Cathedral Washington DC: It looks really big on the outside.

Inside, it is rather cozy.

Of Monsters and Men - Little Talks (Live on KEXP)

Happy Easter!

Why Are Hoodies Threatening?

Here is my working hypothesis.

Daughter's High School String Orchestra

My daughter tells me the piece is called;
Capriccio espagnol, by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov.
Actually, she only gave me the name and I googled the rest of the information.

It is really kind of funny: A Russian makes classical versions of Spanish folk music which is later adapted by American High School string orchestras. Small world & etc.

Practicing Medicine Without A License

On a Japanese Dogwood tree.

Dana Tanamachi

For more on this artist, please see the article in the WSJ.

She Got It Right!

A Chain Reaction With a Little Side-Note

As part of the HHS mandate requiring all insurance, even from Catholic organizations, to offer contraceptives with zero co-pay: The Democrats had Sandra Fluke, a 30 year old Georgetown law student testify on the subject. I won't get into the weeds on the value of her testimony from a legal standpoint since she was not called as an expert witness, but rather as a representative victim. The real controversy came about when talk radio personality, Rush Limbaugh called the student a prostitute and a slut. He has since apologized for his words.

My choice of words was not the best, and in the attempt to be humorous, I created a national stir. I sincerely apologize to Ms. Fluke for the insulting word choices.

--I apologize for taking so long to get to my point, which still requires some set-up.--ed

President Obama ended up phoning the student and among other things said that he thinks her parents should be proud of her.

Ann Althouse, found someone who called the student a "coed" and this was determined to be insulting too! As for me, I think the president and the users of the term "coed" are pulling from the same well, we commonly think of a student as young and so coed is a diminutive term, just as is the use of proud parents.

When I had read the blog posting from Alhouse, I did a little web searching to see if it is at all common to see the use of "coed" as insulting. I didn't come up with any controversy surrounding its use other than the inclusion of a hyphen or not.

Naturally, I commented that I prefer co-ed with its hyphen intact.

Added Notes:

--A common argument against contraceptives being part of insurance is that they are not an unexpected cost. This is probably true most of the time, but I could easily think of a case where it would be true. Say a coed has no plan to become romantically involved while in school and so does not go on the pill. Then, sometime in the course of her studies, she falls in love, gets married and wants to go on the pill. In this sense it would be an unplanned expense.

--Why the insistence on a zero co-pay? Birth control is rarely life-or-death, for the woman that is. Meanwhile, other drugs that treat heart disease, hypertension and diabetes are essential for preserving health and life and yet co-pays are allowed for these. I would class birth control in about the same way I would class my running shoes: Excercise is healthy and athletic shoes are a necessary* cost associated with this healthful activity. My pet hypothesis is that the Obama administration wanted a fight. They could have put all of this off till after the election if they wanted to.

*Frequent readers know that I am increasingly running barefoot, though I don't think it weakens my argument, though possibly my credibility.