Perley's Pontificating Place

    Some of you will look at the picture and wonder what they are. For me , this is another piece of my computing history. These are punch cards, which used to be used to enter data and programs into a computer. They never looked like these cards in particular, as the had only 2 hole per column to represent the various characters printed on the line along the top. For more details on punch cards, just ask Uncle Google.

    MIT still runs an Educational Studies Program (ESP), and as part of that they had a High School Studies Program (HSSP), which I learned about one day when visiting the guidance office. Of the course of the next couple of years in high school, I would spend the better part of the day on Saturday at MIT, taking interesting classes and getting to use some of the resources there. While taking a computer programming course, I ran across the 'Merry Xmas' card in one of the blank punch card bins. As I recall, they had a machine to duplicate punch card sets, and it didn't take long to make quite a few copies.

    A year or 2 later, when I went to Northeastern University for my actual undergrad program, they still used punch cards. Because I had experience with a Wang 2200 minicomputer from my high school, and they had a co-op opening that wanted someone with that skill set, I got to go on co-op early. In my copious free time, I decided I could design a punch card greeting like the one I found at MIT, and so 'Happy Bday', and 'Be Mine' were born. Fortunately I didn't have much more free time, otherwise whoo knows what else I might have come up with.

    So, does this count as ASCII art? No, but certainly a cousin of some type. I think I still have some ASCII art from that time frame, which was really digitized pictures using characters, including Kirk and Spock, but I also have a more traditional ASCII masterpiece of Snoopy as a flying ace. Well, I did. I might have to do some digging around to find the files...no wait, at least some of them are on my website at mears.us, including some other ASCII art pieces I have collected over the years, with attributions to their creators. Check it out if you have a hankerin for nostalgia or creativity.

As I expected, The Last Woman on Earth was hardly a sci-fi flick. It was basically a love triangle movie. At least I got some nap time.

Next up is Mothra, in original Japanese with subtitles. I always enjoyed those old Japanese monster movies when I used to get my fix with channel 56's Creature Double Feature, although they weren't in Japanese. Toy tanks, toy planes, wow and I just saw a toy soldier in the toy tank. Can't forget the guy in the rubber monster suit.

We've made it to the final movie of the THON, Zonad. So far it looks like a comedy, based in a small Irish village. It's been a really 'fun' THON, and everyone seems to have had fun as well.

The weather this year was a bit of a tease. Every year it is always rather cold, and sometimes it snows. This year the days leading up to the THON were quite warm, and I was thinking we might have a warm one this year, but alas, it turned cold, very cold, and it even started snowing early this morning. Fortunately the accumulation has been light, so our return home will not be impeded.

Until next year's Boston Science Fiction Marathon 37, live long and prosper. ^_^

At this point, Ken has headed off to catch a nap at his office before his work day starts. This happens to be the first year that I have not gotten President's Day off as a holiday, so I took it off as a vacation day. When it comes down to it, I'm up for way more than the 24 hours of the THON, as I need to get up and get there, as well as some prep work.

At some point during the night you are faced with a decision, which is going to leave you in worse shape, staying awake the whole time or napping. It's a decision often easier to make in hind sight, but by then it's too late. And I may be getting to an age that I no longer can make the decision, I'll nap regardless. I wonder if this is one of those years.

As can be seen in the picture, Alexei got to play with the laser pointer set I got him for Christmas. The crowd has been pretty subdued, despite the guidance given to new attendees at the start. So far the movies have been
pretty good, so not as many opportunities for MST3K style snark. And by the time any other snarkable flick arrives folks will likely be a tad tired.

Watching Battlestar Galactica brings back memories, both new and old. I enjoyed the TV series when it was on, and it brings back memories of my life then. On the other hand, it brings back memories of watching the new series. It's also interesting to compare the two series, both from a technological and story perspective. The acting is very different, but not so different from most films of the time.

After BSG, they started selling pizza. We decided to go out for a bite, but not before we got a couple shots of someone putting on a gorilla suit with tin foil helmet. We did not hang around to see who actually won the aluminum foil hat contest.

The Alien Mating Call contest is now under way. Never much for earth shattering excitement, this year was no different. Admittedly, the winner was clear with her part feline, part reptile call.

It turns out the MST3K was one we had already seen, and it was a good one too. Sadly, I was unimpressed with the Rosebud Diner. The food was OK standard American fair, but they charged extra for the tomato and lettuce on the sandwiches, and didn't mention that when the waitress asked us if we wanted either. Grump. The kids enjoyed their meals, so all was well

Getting tired, so I may not blog as much as I thought I might. See you at the next update.

I am trying some new things this time around, including trying to post more often, and using a Twitter hash tag in the post title. Since my posts get tweeted to my Twitter stream, and I've decided to use the hash tag #BSFM36 for my tweets about the THON, including it in my title helps me track my posts as part of my Twitter stream, extensive as it is.

Star Trek was wonderful, and naturally very well received. Now we are enjoying a silent 1916 version of Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. It also seems to be merging in Verne's Mysterious Island as well. Quite an historical change of pace.

The picture, which may not be easy to make out, is of Daffy Duck and Porky Pig in the traditional Waldorf and Stadtler box seats. Nice to have the stars of Duck Dodgers in the 24th and a half century join us.

Here I am, back to blogging, as it's that time of year, This year's Boston Science Fiction Marathon is another special year, as my youngest son has joined us for the first time. My oldest and my dad are also here, being the third year for my oldest.

To start this year's Thon, they got a great movie, Star Trek, the newest in the series. I think they have done a great job of restarting the series, with lots of possibilities. I only hope they keep up the good work.

Let me start by saying I'm not really a competitive runner. I much prefer social workout activities, such as team sports like basketball, or group exercise classes like aerobics or boot camp. Usually running is more of an individual sport, particularly when racing. I do run/jog when I have a friend or 2 to run with, or when I need some exercise and no social opportunities avail themselves.

I started running about 25 years ago. My best friend was more into running, and it has been his primary exercise for years. He was much better at it, but I had an annoying habit. Just about every time, no matter how long the run or how hard I tried to stay up with him, when the end of our run was in view, I somehow had enough left to get a sprint going . I couldn't always catch or pass him, but I figured it made him push a bit at the end.

This end of race sprinting is not a conscious choice, but pretty consistent. Even when I ran the Boston Marathon, as a bandit of course, and ran for 4.5 hours straight, I don't do things I love for 4.5 hours straight, when I turned that last corner and saw the 26 mile mark and the finish line 2/10ths of a mile further, I started sprinting. And the coolest part was that my friends had made their way into town after seeing me start the race, and were there cheering me on. A memory well worth running 26.2 miles for. ^_^

What the? How did this devolve into rambling reminiscing? Alright, back to the topic of this post. I've been running a local memorial race for my kids school for a number of years, despite their poor track record of advertising it, even to past participants. It's the Alison Murphy 5K, and it's a reasonably level race. I noticed 2 years ago that I was close to placing in my age group. I figured my odds of placing would be better when I moved into the next age group, being younger in that age group. That would have been last year, but thanks to the poor marketing, I didn't find out when the race was until the day before, and had other plans.

This year, I was focused on placing. Then I got a cold about 2 weeks before the race, messing up my 'training', such as it is. And it was one of those colds that doesn't let go easy and leaves your energy level low for long after it is gone. OK, handicap number 1. Then the day of the race turned out to be in the 80s and humid, in the last week of September in New England. Curse you global warming. :-) I don't like running in heat and humidity.

I did do some planning that I think paid off. I reviewed some music on my iPhone and had some ideas about a set that would last the time I should cover the course in. I will do more planning next time, but it worked well, and I even actually bought a song I wanted to finish the race on. I rarely buy music, mostly because I've got a lot of what I like and don't listen to that as much as I could.

I thought my timing for when to get there was good, but parking, or lack there of, proved me wrong. The online registration wanted to charge a $2.50 processing fee, which I decided was not worth it, so I needed to get there in time to register and do some warm up running. Lesson 1 - get there 45-60 minutes before the start, rather than my 30 minutes.

Since this is a memorial race for a high school student who lost her life on the school ski trip, it attracts a lot of the regional high school athletes. This year that included both the boys and girls soccer teams. Decades younger than me, full of energy, so since it is left to the runners to appropriately self position themselves, I figured I should start behind them. Lesson 2 - wrong choice. Young they may be, and full of energy, but most of them are not strong runners, nor necessarily trying to compete. There were so many of them they filled the whole road for quite a way, and I felt like I was running in place trying to get by them and get into my pace, which was faster than theirs. I'll never know for sure, but I bet I could have cut off 30 seconds or more. :-)

I was pleased with how well my Motorola H710 bluetooth headset worked for listening to my music. It's only mono, but it stayed on my ear very well, despite the bouncy nature of running, and unlike my stereo bluetooth in-the-ear headphones I used last time. And reading my time during the race was easier using RunKeeper, particularly since I still haven't figured out how to stop/reset the chronograph on my watch. Time to read the manual.

So, how did I do? Out of 5 total runners in my age group, I came in 5th. :-( The 3rd and 4th place finishers in my age group were a minute and a minute and 10 seconds faster than me, which is well within my normal range. I ended up running a bit over 8 minutes per mile, and I'm usually closer to 7 minutes per mile.

Now I'm wondering if I'm in another race, to place in this annual race before age becomes more if a hinderance than a benefit. By keeping these and other lessons in mind, I'll try to win both races.