I feel like people checking recent posts here are going to leave, thinking, “This guy is really into birding and running and not much else”. But there’s more to me than that. I have other hobbies! I have opinions! I write lists!
But I have been going through some interesting times that have pushed me away from writing about other stuff here on the blog and I’m hoping to add more of that back so it’s not all 5K runs and here’s a Black-capped Chickadee. (Though I feel part of it is the desire to share and mull things over in a public space has withered away a little, though I can’t articulate exactly why this might have happened.)
In the meantime, here are some semi-random posts of mine you may find interesting. I have a certain, specific sense of humour and if it doesn’t match yours, some of these links may not do anything for you, but if you’re a nostalgia nerd, some probably will.
I will put an update at the top of this post if I add more links later.
Most of the fiction comes from writing prompts and these are essentially first drafts, so they may be a bit unpolished or even unfinished (I note the unfinished ones).
I spent a lot of time this morning doing things to avoid running. I’m not sure why, because I knew if I waited, it would just get warmer and the run would be harder. But I finally headed out and started my run shortly after noon–about three hours later than I’d normally like.
It was not quite as warm as last Wednesday, but humidity was higher. The AQI1Air Quality Index was 61, which is moderate, as high haze from distant wildfires hung in the sky. The air felt thick, or thicc if you prefer, you crazy hipster.
For the first four km my pace was very consistent, hovering right around 6:22/km or so and the average pace went down because, surprisingly, I had a little to spare to push a bit at the end and the final km was 6:10/km. BPM was a nice 148, while the sweat-o-meter was Very High. Despite the muggy conditions, I found I had the energy to keep pushing and never flagged or experienced issues. I drank from a fountain copiously upon completing the run, but that was all.
The trail had a modest level of activity, mostly other runners, some of whom looked unnaturally cool and dry, like they were androids or had some kind of futuristic cooling systems under their skimpy jogging clothes. Or maybe I just sweat a lot.
In any case, a decent start to the week under less than awesome conditions.
Late summer “fringes” along the edges of Still Creek are back and in full bloom.
Stats:
Run 1,054 Average pace: 6:19/km Training status: Productive Performance Condition: +2 Location: Burnaby Lake (CW) Start: 12:09 p.m. Distance: 5.03 km Time: 31:47 Weather: Sunny with high haze AQI: 62 (moderate) Temp: 22–23°C Humidity: 63–59% Wind: light BPM: 148 Weight: 170.3 pounds Total distance to date: 7,075 km Devices: Garmin Forerunner 265, Samsung Galaxy S26, AirPods (3rd generation) Shoes: Scarpa Golden Gate ATR 2 (55/121/176)
Where: Blakeburn Lagoons Park, DeBoville Slough Port Coquitlam), Tlahutum Regional Park (Coquitlam) Weather: Sunny, 21–25°C
Brought to you by the colour green and a whole lot of bear poop.
Blakeburn Lagoons Park
One of the two lagoons, this one featuring a sneaky Green Heron.
I suggested Blakeburn Lagoons Park because Green Herons have been known to hang out there and we fleetingly saw one fly off on one visit. I didn’t actually expect to see one.
But we did!
At the first viewing platform was a couple with binoculars and cameras and the man described to us a nearby Green Heron at the edge of the lagoon. He also politely asked Nic to not squee too loud as the heron is apparently skittish.
And lo, there it was, hunkered down in front of the grass on the lagoon edge, very well camouflaged. We watched it attempt to grab a fish (it looked like it missed), then it flew off…but landed in a nearby tree, where it hung out for a good while, preening, and looking about before moving on. Neat.
We also saw three grebes, two adults and a younger one following one of the adults, because it was carrying a yummy fish in its bill. Most of the two lagoons were occupied by Mallards. The single coot was not present, except in our hearts.
DeBoville Slough
One of the spacious fields popular with bears.
Having scored early, we headed off to the DeBoville Slough, where it felt a lot hotter than it was, dang humidity. We saw a lot of bear poop on the trail and when we approached the first vast farm field on the left, there was a large black bear strolling through it, possibly looking for a place to poop (again). We later had people advise us of a black bear in a tree (we did not see it) and a mother bear with two cubs traversing the river’s edge (we also did not see these, which I am thankful for, because mother bears don’t always understand that humans without guns are harmless and not good to eat).
But what really stood out were the Eastern Kingbirds. We don’t seem them too frequently, but here they were out in abundance, flitting from tree to tree, chasing each other and occasionally sitting just right on a branch for us to get awesome shots. I don’t know if there was a Kingbird Festival going on or what, but I was pleased to get my best Kingbird shots.
Before the Kingbirdpalooza, we shot some young Savannah Sparrows hopping around on the trail, but it later turned out they were actually Chipping Sparrows. The adult males have extremely dapper scarlet caps on their heads (the colour, not actual caps, though those would also look very dapper) and while these younger ones lacked the colour, they were still very cute and energetic.
We also got some good views of kingfishers (it was a royal day for birding), spotted some waxwings, robins, and others, making the slough a surprisingly decent birding spot (we usually fall back on all the pretty scenery).
Tlahutum Regional Park
A lot of haze in the sky, but not much water in the Coquitlam River.
We concluded at Tlahutum, stopping first by the drinking fountain, which had a “Wasp Nest” sign on the opposite side from us. Handy.
Having not gotten stung, we ventured into the community garden and perhaps due to it being later in the afternoon and quite humid, we did not see many birds about. We did see even more Kingbirds, though. The Coquitlam River was very low and the big pond was almost nothing but mud, the water largely absent, revealing Nazi warships a plastic crate long hidden.
There were pollinators and plenty of pretty flowers, though, so it was fine.
At the end, I checked my stats and I had walked 500 miles. Or at least it felt like it. And I would walk 500 more (for another Green Heron, maybe).
The Shots
All photos shot with a Canon EOS R7 with 18–150 mm kit lens and 100–400 mm telephoto unless otherwise noted.
Duck ballet.
An eyeball drawn onto a railing at Blakeburn Lagoons Park.
Cable on a viewing platform.
A Pied-billed Grebe getting ready to snooze.
Lily Pads at Blakeburn Lagoons.
A wasp trundling across leaves.
A wasp collecting nectar.
A Green Heron stalking into position.
Green Heron Neck Articulation Sequence begins.
Green Heron Neck Articulation Sequence concludes.
The Green Heron later in a nearby tree.
A young Chipping Sparrow having discovered grass.
American Crow surveying the surroundings.
The Black Bear was apparently too fuzzy for my camera.
I must sacrifice my knees to get good grasshopper shots.
A vast farm field, the kind black bears like.
Good girl (or boy) with a stick.
A Great Blue Heron flying off, shortly before pooping. I missed the poop shot.
With all the bear poop, there were bound to be flies.
A fly head-on.
Western Painted Turtle sunning at the water's edge.
Another young American Robin.
Cedar Waxwing, looking sharp as ever.
An Eastern Kingbird looking regal.
Black and white plastic chair.
Coquitlam River, looking low.
Ripples in the Coquitlam River.
Red flower in the community garden.
Bumblebee on a sunflower.
A cup in the community garden.
A White-crowned Sparrow briefly stopping by.
Sun reflecting into a creek.
Ripe veggies. The one on the top left looks like it's reaching out for something.
Why? Because I was looking at my tags (all 100 million of them) and Nic noticed one that was so long it wasn’t wrapping properly in a column. I said it was probably for a review of the movie 2012, which I remembered correctly. Then we reread the review and Nic pointed out I had said the fissure in the Sistine Chapel appears between God’s finger and David, when it is, in fact, Adam. So I fixed it. The post was written on November 14, 2009.
I have a quote by journalist James Fallows at the top right of my blog which reads:
In my experience, what anyone serious about writing likes is having written.
Now, it’s entirely possible that Fallows came up with this on his own, unaware of Parker’s original quote, and the tone is different–appropriately, Parker’s version is more direct and cutting.
I’m unsure if I should keep the Fallows quote, switch to the Parker one or maybe put something else completely different in that upper right corner. Maybe I’ll put my own quote there. Or a cat. I will ponder.
Today, Instagram updated its logo wordmark. CNET had a nice image of the before and after, presented below as after and before:
Instagzam vs. Instagram
Although I don’t think AI was used in the creation of the new logo, it still smells of it in the way AI messes up things, like:
Goofy kerning
Goofy mix of cursive and non-cursive letters (apparently trying to call back to the previous logo the same way someone riding a bike off a picnic table and crashing calls back to Evel Knievel)
Goofy letters (notably the R, G and S. Someone on Ars Technica commented that the S looks like a side boob and now I can’t unsee it.)
Despite all the above, still looking limp and bland
My take? Yes, it’s bad. The old logo is instantly recognizable, legible and stylish. The new one is a graceless “reeks of committee” thing. It’s also exactly the kind of logo I’d expect a big (and awful) tech company like Meta to produce in 2026.
This led me to other logo redesigns of recent years, such as the also awful one for Pringles:
Here, I think they really hit it in 2009, though 2001 is pretty good, too. The flattened, gormless 2021 redesign is so bad that the longer you look at the face, the less it looks like a face and just a set of weird shapes. It also inspired me to do this:
I am your nightmare.
You’re welcome!
Another good (bad) example is Jaguar’s recent logo redesign:
Cool cat vs. A mix of letters
It went from instantly recognizable to something absolutely generic that says nothing (it’s still way better than Instagram’s, even at that).
In conclusion: Logo design is a fine balancing act between art, character, and image (the type you project). We live in an era where almost every logo out there is being flattened, simplified and stripped of all character and identity (see also: Jaguar’s impressively bad update). The only reason I can think why this is happening is companies are going cheap by making logos so simple they can be slapped on anything at any size with no need for adjustment. If it’s not this, then somehow bad design has become good design, the same way 2 + 2 = 5.
With more people talking about the idea of a dead internet, I find weird comfort in the gaming site Blue’s News, which served as my homepage over 20 years ago and looks pretty much exactly the same now as it did then:
You can almost smell the HTML.
I still don’t get the three lines at the top, though.
Like a lot of people, in 1990 I bought Queensryche’s fourth album, Empire, because the song “Silent Lucidity” was such an effective clone of that big, spacey Pink Floyd sound. I’ve said before that if you dropped the song onto either of the post-Waters Pink Floyd albums, no one would have batted an eye.
But Empire is more than just “Silent Lucidity”. It also features the title track, which is about the usual decline of urban America, its descent into violence and guns, guns, guns (“Got an AK-47 for his best friend/Business the American way1“).
But there’s a spoken word section that recites the following:
In fiscal year of 1986 to 1987, local, state and federal governments spent a combined total of 60.6 million on law enforcement. Federal law expenditures ranked last in absolute dollars and accounted for only a sixth percent of federal spending. By way of comparison, the federal government spent 24 million more on space exploration and 43 -times- more on national defense and international relations than law enforcement.
This seems like a pretty clear statement of “more funding for police = better!”, which was naive in 1990 and in 2026, with police in most American cities being very well-funded, and ICE terrorizing citizens, the reality is that well-funded law enforcement has created a de facto police state in America. And solved none of the issues that the song “Empire” speaks to. Whoops.
But “Silent Lucidity” is still a very nice Pink Floyd homage.
If the lyrics had been more openly sarcastic, they would have worked better, but that might be just me. ↩︎
View from Cariboo Dam, pre-run: It doesn’t look hotter, but it’s hotter.
Today’s run was the opposite of Monday’s: hot and gross. Monday it started out at 19°C, which was nice. Today it was 24°C and I felt every one of those five extra degrees.
It started out seemingly well, with an initial pace of 6:08/km, but I slipped to 6:18/km and after that it was Slog City™ to the end. I stopped twice, once at the Nature House to hydrate at the water fountain and again just after entering the Conifer Loop, because I was tired. I didn’t stop for long either time and I don’t think they had any real effect on my overall result, except for allowing me to push on just a bit longer.
I also did a short loop and made it tighter than usual so I’d have less walking to do on the way home. That part worked well!
No particular highlights on the run, of course, and near the end some dope passed by on an electric scooter. I told him they weren’t allowed on the trail, but he probably heard it as, “Why does that sweaty man who looks like he’s dying mumbling at me?”
Anyway, I started late and paid the price. Lesson learned (in theory). I’ll start earlier on Friday, I totes promise.
Brunette River, pre-run: I was too tired to take photos after.
Stats:
Run 1,053 Average pace: 6:20/km Training status: Productive Performance Condition: +0 Location: Burnaby Lake (CCW, short loop) Start: 11:39 a.m. Distance: 5.03 km Time: 31:50 Weather: Sunny Temp: 24°C Humidity: 55% Wind: light BPM: 151 Weight: 170.0 pounds Total distance to date: 7,070 km Devices: Garmin Forerunner 265, Samsung Galaxy S26, AirPods (3rd generation) Shoes: Scarpa Golden Gate ATR 2 (50/108/158)
I realized some years back that for all my Apple-bashing here on this blog (it is legion, and kind of embarrassing, though some of my takes on various Apple events still amuse me) I actually had a lot of Apple products:
iPod (nano and Classic)
AirPods
iPhone 12
iPad Pro
Mac Studio
Apple Watch
That’s just what I have now. I’ve also had Mac minis and a MacBook Air and Pro in the past. Of the still-have items, the only ones in active use are the iPad Pro (2020) and AirPods (3rd gen, and being used with a Samsung Galaxy S26, not an iPhone), so I’ve pretty much moved out of the Apple ecosystem. I no longer use Apple Music, Apple TV, iCloud, or any other Apple services. Once you break from the services, it gets a lot easier to move away from Apple, especially if you aren’t also beholden to an Apple-specific app (I still use Procreate on my iPad Pro, but am drawing more on a Galaxy tablet lately, so I can make the switch if needed).
And I’m happy with the decision to move away from Apple. I can’t and won’t drop every thing from every company I object to. It would be overwhelming. I’d end up being a monk living on a bamboo mat in a monastery up in mist-shrouded mountains. Monks are cool, but I still enjoy using and messing around with tech. Plus I’d probably look funny in a robe.
But I do what I can. And much as I loathe moving over to Android because of Google’s ownership and their nutty desire to shove “AI” into every part of Android, I make do.
Apple got the message from me: I’m done with it, its products, and its services. I’m just one little drop in their trillions-valued bucket, but I’m content with that. For me, it’s nice to have local backups again, to have more direct control over my tech, and to not feel trapped in what looks like a garden but feels more like a cell1OK, even I’ll admit that’s a bit melodramatic, but I couldn’t resist..
Anyone want a used Mac Studio? It doesn’t have Tahoe installed!
