I am casually making my way westward. Tallahassee was relaxing, just had dinner with Alex and then watched a movie and then started the real driving the next morning. Books on tape are what keep me sane while sitting for so long. Mostly I have been listening to the
podcasts Democracy Now, Car Talk, and Enter the Bee Hive (a guide to business and the corporate world). Also a lot of The Modern Scholar's Global Warming: Global Threat with Professor Michael B.
McElroy.
McElroy really does a great job presenting all the ideas and concerns about Global Warming in a very strait forward and easy to understand way with lots of
analogies. It is much nicer learning about the problem from a scientist rather than either
fanatically Left or Right people. It is very clear that this is not a cut and dry issue and that as with any biological system (And the Earth is one) there are a daunting number of factors to consider and everything is tightly bound together. One interesting factoid that he mentions is that we may have warded off the next Ice Age that was scheduled for about this time. Highly
recommended.
All the sitting has also gotten to me
physically so I have decided to start doing a series of
push-ups,
sit-ups, and
pull-ups (something that I should also be doing at home...), and a lot of
stretching. The
pull-ups are hard with no
pull-up bar but I
manage to
squeeze out a few by crimping the door frame, at least this will really help my climbing. I also shaved my head as it was getting just too hot.
Both my spontaneous stops for State Parks ended in
disappointment. The first was the Florida Caverns, which were closed. The second were some springs that turned out to be completely encased with
concrete and might as well have been a swimming pool and over run with screaming kids. But not to
despair, I will keep trying. The good side though was that just outside the springs park was a little BBQ place with $4.99 pork sandwiches which, while not amazing, were quite good.
