My condolences to the family of Chuck Yeager and to the country as a whole. Yeager, the first man to reach/break the sound barrier (Mach 1) in level flight, died on Pearl Harbor Day, December 7th at the age of 97.

On October 14, 1947 he broke the sound barrier, flying faster than the speed of sound, while at the controls of the experimental Bell X-1 at an altitude of 45,000 ft. Just like some scientists thought the first atomic bomb detonation might incinerate the earth’s atmosphere, many in aviation thought it was not possible to fly faster than the speed of sound, that the aircraft would disintegrate.

Yeager was far more than the man who broke the sound barrier. He was a successful fighter pilot, achieving “ace in a day” status for shooting down five enemy aircraft on October 12, 1944. After the flight in the X-1, he broke several other speed and altitude records. Later, Yeager commanded fighter squadrons and wings in Germany, as well as in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War. In recognition of the outstanding performance ratings of those units, he was promoted to brigadier general in 1969.

I think, today, we are in dire need of people like Yeager. Maybe we were lucky just to have one at all.

 

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In my opinion…

Republicans/Conservatives have a foolish amount of faith in human nature.

Democrats/Liberals foolishly think they can change and/or ignore human nature.

Quite the conundrum, isn’t it?

The political spectrum is two-dimensional, at most. The real world is three-dimensional, at least. Do the math.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it…

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OK, why am I showing this screenshot from my phone from yesterday? Do the math…yesterday was the 347th day of 2020. Multiply 347 times the average number of steps per day (5,767) and the result is more than two million.

Early in the year I set a goal to walk at least 2,000,000 steps in 2020 as measured by my iPhone. This measure is actually an understatement, of course. I don’t always have my phone on me, sometimes it’s charging or just not in my pocket. When I’m running, the phone is not on me, either. How many steps have I run this year? This has not been a good year for treadmill workouts. The treadmill has suffered two breakdowns that left it unavailable for a total of five weeks. The two trips to Arizona and the move left it unavailable for another three weeks.

Let’s say I have run 100 times on the treadmill this year and, conservatively, have averaged 25 minutes per run. At 175 steps per minute (yes, I have counted) that is 4,375 steps per workout for a total of 437,500 running steps.

One might say, and I have, that I am trying to literally outrun my parents’ problematic physiologies. My father had diabetes that reached a point where he needed insulin. My mother had high cholesterol, that contributed to two heart attacks, long before the approval of Lipitor in 1996.

My lipids and sugars are “well-controlled” in the parlance of medicine, although my lipids are better controlled than my sugars. I have written this before, but before I started running in 2010, my cholesterol and glucose levels were not so well-controlled despite taking five prescription medicines a day. I now take just two scripts a day. Running is good for you. Exercise is good for you. Unless you have a mitochondrial disorder or are prone to exercise-induced asthma, then you are not as healthy as you could be without regular, moderate exercise no matter how you eat.

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OK, you didn’t think I could call this post “Mach 1 Sunday” and not show a Mach 1 Mustang, especially since my wonderful wife used to have one, did you? From the appropriately named mustangattitude.com a picture of a 1972 Mach 1, the model year my wife owned.

 

 

#Mach1Sunday

#ChuckYeager

#IdeologyIsFolly

#2000000Steps

#1972Mach1Mustang

#somanycarsjustonelife

#disaffectedmusings

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