Dallas Smith
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smithbend.bsky.social
Dallas Smith
@smithbend.bsky.social
Roads and trails I run and have run, people, things, events I experience there. 100+ marathons. AG winner Chicago and NYC marathons. 100+ AG state records. Background: engineering, Prof Emeritus.
Latest book: Bench Of Despair.

23 July 2024 #6,132,672
Pinned
My heart is heavy with regret and sorrow, regret that I didn't do more to make our 40 years together better and sorrow that it is forever too late. Jo Ann passed away Monday two weeks ago. I could not have had a better wife.
When I'm afoot I don't need to see the driver's face. A hand in the sunlight of the windshield tells me if it's a woman or man.

When the hand is open, palm out, fingers spread the driver is a woman.
November 24, 2025 at 7:21 PM
She was resting on the guardrail half standing, head down. As I walked by she raised a face full of gloom, and when I waved she didn't wave back.

It made me think of Cole Porter's Miss Otis Regrets, when she woke up and found her dream of love was gone.
November 24, 2025 at 7:17 PM
A thing I've not done in a long long time -- pump gas.

In this case into a hardtop convertible, a guilty pleasure on this sunny day in Tennessee. And yes the environmentalist and EV driver (normally) is gonna put the top down.

Forgive me!
November 23, 2025 at 6:23 PM
Reposted by Dallas Smith
A lot of people say the god of the New Testament isn’t vengeful, but Janis Joplin just asked for a color TV and look what happened to her.
November 23, 2025 at 12:35 AM
Willie Stark: Man is conceived in sin and born in corruption, from the diaper to the shroud there's always something.

Woke up thinking about this saying this morning. Why?
November 21, 2025 at 2:08 PM
Reposted by Dallas Smith
bush v gore is the hinge upon which basically everything awful from the last quarter century swings on
i don't think that bush v. gore is the *worst* ruling in the history of the supreme court, but i do think it is the most openly *corrupt* ruling in its history. a real disgrace.
November 17, 2025 at 3:51 AM
Reposted by Dallas Smith
The president of the most powerful nation on Earth is so terrified of the tales that an imprisoned sex trafficker can tell that he plies her with a comfort puppy and custom meals and is holding out the prospect of a pardon.
77 million people voted for this.
November 15, 2025 at 3:40 AM
Lemme tell you the difference in men and women -- drivers of the vehicles I meet while afoot anyway.

A woman holds her hand in windshield palm outward, fingers spread, an open, welcoming greeting.

A man shows the edge of his hand salute style, or one-or-two fingers Texas style.

Happy for either.
November 12, 2025 at 6:49 PM
Lithium ion batteries have changed the game.

Used to be I'd pick up tire-threatening nails at intersections. Now I pick up 3-inch screws. Carpenters frame a house with their cordless drills.
November 12, 2025 at 6:38 PM
What a big-assed leaf. That sucker must've measured 18 inches across.

Compare it to the "normal" leaves littering the ground -- sweet gums mostly.
November 12, 2025 at 6:33 PM
On my snowy 6-miler today I found a penny, a penny, and a nickel. I left them on pavement in front of rural mailbox. see how long they stay there.
November 11, 2025 at 4:18 AM
This ain't unusual. Well, or maybe it is for Middle Tennessee.

Anyway a chill factor of 15 deg F and it did not seem to rise very much all day long.

I was out in it off-and-on most of the day, starting with a 6-mi trudge, and I lost one hand warmer early on.
November 11, 2025 at 12:38 AM
Reposted by Dallas Smith
Rereading a bit of Frederick Douglass today and this felt unfortunately relevant, "the white man's happiness cannot be purchased by the black man's misery."
November 10, 2025 at 10:33 PM
For supper: Dinty Moore stew and Cold Duck wine.

Don't tell me I don't know how to live!
November 11, 2025 at 12:09 AM
Chill factor 15 deg F, snowing sideways. Trudge 6 miles.

Can't allow weather-defeat. I'm 85 years old, man.
November 10, 2025 at 7:17 PM
Reposted by Dallas Smith
There are 133 counties and county-equivalents in Virginia and New Jersey. In 127 of them, the vote shifted to the Democrats since November 2024. On average, the shift was 6 points to the left.
November 5, 2025 at 4:02 AM
Ray Wylie Hubbard's lyrics to Conversation with the Devil, sung in a talking blues style, are about as much fun as you'll find in a song.

"One thing you won't find in heaven are Christian Coalition Right Wing Conservatives," Devil told him. Then he showed him where in hell he keeps the preachers.
October 26, 2025 at 6:39 PM
Historic drive to lunch at Rojas Kitchen today, thru Nameless (Blue Highways fame), Granville (Scarecrow walk in prog), Chestnut Mound, Elmwood and now Carthage

Past home of Albert Gore and home of Al Gore, each sitting within sight of each other.
October 26, 2025 at 6:21 PM
Rojas Kitchen has into beans and flitters -- and blackberry cobbler with ice cream on top.

It was good and why not! My weight hit 133.8 Friday. Low even for a marathoner. I can eat any damned thing I want -- occasionally anyway.
October 26, 2025 at 6:10 PM
Reposted by Dallas Smith
Hi, I'm America. We're shooting alleged drug smugglers off the coast of Venezuela instead of in US waters which might prove their intent to come to the states. Also drug smuggling has the death penalty now and we do it without a trial to verify the facts. K bye!
October 24, 2025 at 1:08 PM
Reposted by Dallas Smith
Over the past week, the president said the DOJ should pay him a quarter billion dollars, bulldozed half the White House to build himself a gaudy ballroom, bragged about murdering civilians in international waters, pardoned some more criminals, directed federal prosecutors to indict his opponents ...
October 23, 2025 at 9:42 PM
A modern store dazzles me. You go in. So many choices. It throws me into analysis paralysis. I end up leaving without buying a thing.

Which happened at shoe store and at Academy store.
October 23, 2025 at 9:52 PM
Reposted by Dallas Smith
This is so on point it is painful.
October 23, 2025 at 3:12 AM
He tried to overturn he votes of some 80 million voters, to overturn Democracy itself.

DOJ investigated and he should have gone to prison.

Now his lawsuit against DOJ for having the enormous gall to investigate him demands they pay him $230m.

This gets my goat worst than all his misconduct.
October 23, 2025 at 3:04 AM