England: The price of an annual Oxford-to-London season commuter train ticket is set to break the £5,000 barrier at the start of the new year.

 The Phillippines:  The stock market breaches 5,000 mark, sets all time record.

 Houston Texas: Arian Foster becomes the third-fastest player in NFL history to reach 5,000 yards from scrimmage.

 New York:  After over a year in existence, Adrift on Driftwood (31driftwood.blogspot.com) records its 5000^th pageview.

Congrats to all.

When I began this blog, I promised myself to avoid too much personal stuff and try to fill this space with info and topics of more universal appeal.  What follows is proof that I can't always keep that promise. 

Cally likes me, but not my camera.  

When we're in The Springs, Cally  hops in the car just after each day's dawn and eagerly (to say the least) accompanies me as I first stop at the local market to pick up the paper and a coffee before heading over to Maidstone Beach where I shuffle along sand and scrub as she gallops and sniffs and pees and poops and chases every living organism within sight and scent. 

Maidstone Beach on Gardiner's Bay.  

In the event that rain dampens my desire to follow her every twist and turn, I just take shelter here and check out the sports section while yelling her name periodically to keep her in sight--and on some occasions I reward her prompt responsiveness with a small treat that I so thoughtfully remembered to bring along to insure her happiness while reinforcing her homing instinct. 

 Alex M., Our fearless Men's book group leader (and distinguished man of medicine and  philanthropy)  managed to  convince author Peter De Jonge to join us for dinner and a discussion about his outstanding novel (reviewed in earlier post) Buried on Avenue B.  During the course of our conversation Peter cited this J.M. Coetzee book as a model of what he considers great fiction.  I had read 2 Coetzee books years ago and was impressed but not enthusiastic  to read more.  But I thank Peter (and Alex --for making this our next assignment) cause this one was outstanding. A slim volume that carries  a lot of weight with amazing grace. The author has something of a blind spot when it comes to the protagonist's delusional romanticism, but that may be  deliberate and it certainly doesn't dilute the power of the tale.   Can't figure out how it managed to win The Booker Prize though.  The judges must have suffered a momentary lapse of elitist snobbery. 


My blogging Mentor: TeddyVegas.blogspot.com had a typically clever notion:  in his own words--

 About 2 years ago, when I finally became convinced that Lance Armstrong was a defiant liar, arrogant fraud and bullying cheat, I thought it would be cool to rebrand the whole Livestrong phenomenon through the elimination of a single letter.  My friend Harris Silver (who may have had the same idea, I honestly cannot remember...and honesty is important in this context!) did me the favor of creating the prototype.  

We are thinking of trying to sell them now--in the wake of the recent damning revelations.  Along with my efforts at turning Trump into T-Rump, this represents one of the finest vengeful rebranding concepts I've ever had the pleasure of being involved with!

Oh, one more thing:  I was on performance enhancing drugs when I came up with the idea.  

And with five down and only 21 to go....

F is for
farctate	The state of being stuffed with food (overeating)
filipendulous	Suspended by a single thread
floccinaucinihilipilification	The categorising of something that is useless or trivial
fuscoferuginous	Having a dark rusty colour