2016 Winter January 17 Sunday

29 degrees this morning.  Walk (estimated, forgot to turn off stopwatch) 30 minutes

Shortened walk this morning, exactly one month since my last walk (Dec. 17). Overall, seemed to go well, shortened it slightly just to be cautious.  Did full set of setups and weights.  

Don’t feel the walk worsened my cold, although I am still well aware of a slight cold.  I’m going to keep taking it easy!

Disappointed I forgot to stop my stopwatch.  I realize it doesn’t affect the benefits of my walk at all, but I would like to know how long I walked!  I can figure out somewhat from my phone.  

Felt good to walk again, and start listening to “Wilson” (the autobiography of Woodrow Wilson) again.  Again, I am amazed at how much time Presidents had for personal activities and how some of the activities I really didn’t realize happened during his time.

For example, this was the time of “Pancho Villa”, for some reason I thought he was back in the 1800’s!  

Right now, where I am listening, he is trying to stay out of WWI.

Went to the meeting yesterday morning (no snow or even rain).  Actually it was pretty good and I am glad I went.  It was a Toastmasters “Officers training” session and I feel I learned quite a bit.  

Perhaps they were correct in having it on a Saturday morning of a three day holiday, since I have Monday off also, so it makes losing my Saturday morning a little easier.  

While there, I saw a Toastmaster I met when I first joined Toastmasters who is still heavily involved in Toastmasters.  

He was (and still is) involved in a “prison Toastmasters Club”.  Obviously attendance is good!  It actually is a “privilege” they have to earn to attend the meetings.  

While I realize prisons are absolutely necessary, I think sometimes the emphasis on punishment far outweighs the basic objective of rehabilitation of a person, if at all possible.  I feel many persons are sent to prison where they would be much more valuable (and still accomplish the goals of punishment and rehabilitation) by community service.  

One thing that absolutely enraged me was that “contract prisons” take their high profits and lobby for heavier prison sentences!  Where are their ethics?  I really wonder how such persons (if they are indeed human) can actually live with themselves. 

Lobbying for more human misery as a way of making money is almost unthinkable.  

If they want to state their personal opinion for heavier sentences, it’s a free country, but to lobby for heavier sentences as a way of making more profits? Obscene.  It ought to be illegal, maybe with some time in their own jails!If 

I feels so good to start feeling reasonably good again!  After I feel miserable for long period of time, I learn to treasure each good day, or even hour and minute and second for that matter.  Sometimes, I think  “I’ll just enjoy this moment and not worry about anything”.  It is amazing how it calms you down and perhaps allows you to concentrate on your priorities and not worry about low priority items!

I think that is what concerns me about the news media (of much of it).  The news is about low priority items in our lives.  In the overall scheme of our lives, who really cares about “celebrities” , sports etc?  They certainly should not be on the front page.  

I can see the day when TV is more like many web pages where you don’t have to sit through “news” you aren’t interested in, but you have a menu of stories etc. to choose from.  Of course, we heavily use the DVR to accomplish the same purpose!

Feels good to think, in actuality, this is like Saturday morning and I am off tomorrow also!

That’s it for now, Sunday, January 17, 2016.