The conditions today were similar to Monday, except it was pleasantly sunny, which was nice.
I opted to go to the lake and run clockwise and didn’t do a precise short loop, instead running about 2 km before doubling back and wrapping up another 2.5K outing. I’m planning on another full 5K run on Friday.
Overall, the run went well. I improved my pace by a nice nine seconds and came in under the six-minute mark for the first time since resuming runs. I didn’t experience any issues, though stamina is still way below normal. I managed to push a bit toward the end to keep the pace up, though.
I’m not sure if it was the allegedly great sleep I got last night (I say alleged because smartwatches are not generally regarded for tracking sleep super accurately), the sun or alignment of the planets, but I managed a BPM of 145, which is unusually low, but in a good way. I also managed to boost up my max heart rate, which is also good.
So, overall, good!
And I hit a milestone of 6,400 km officially tracked since 2009. I’ve run more since I didn’t track early on, but it’s still a nice number. It would get me from my home to this spot in the Atlantic Ocean, per Google Maps:
And a more down-to-earth image of the trail, post-run:
Sun-dappled trail, post-run.
Stats:
Run 910 Average pace: 5:54/km Training status: Productive Location: Burnaby Lake (CW, short loop) Start: 2:15 p.m. Distance: 2.50 km Time: 14:45 Weather: Sunny Temp: 10°C Humidity: 64% Wind: light BPM: 145 Weight: 170.8 Total distance to date: 6,400 km Devices: Garmin Forerunner 255 Music, iPhone 12, AirPods (3rd generation) Shoes: Saucony Switchback (these are old shoes and will be replaced soon™)
Discovering Steve Boots, a funny, amiable socialist and teacher who does Canadian political analysis on YouTube.
Entertaining the possibility that we might actually dodge electing a Conservative government in this year’s federal election
This has been an unplanned somewhat political post, thanks to tariffs and other actions and comments from some increasingly senile old white guy who wears a lot of orange makeup because he is a clown, and we are all part of the circus now.
The recommended run from my Garmin Forerunner 255 was a 33-minute jog at a pace of 8:46/km. This is equivalent to either an extremely brisk walk or a very slow run. It’s kind of an awkward pace to set. Since I wasn’t feeling extra zesty, I opted to do a shorter 2.5K run and try, more or less, to maintain my usual jogging pace.
Compared to last time, I was a speeding bullet: My pace was 6:03/km vs. 6:21 on the previous run, but I did only run half as much, and the river trail is an easier run than the lake.
I still acutely feel the lack of stamina, but it will get better. At least my training status went from Unproductive to Productive. Yay.
Conditions were fine–I wore one layer, a long-sleeved shirt and the sprinkles stayed away until after the run was over and didn’t amount to much, anyway. And I held up better than the tree that collapsed since my last run (photo below). It keeled over into the river just downstream from another one, though the new tree is not quite as bridge-like, since a good part of it is laying right in the river. I’m curious if they’ll leave it as is (probably–the parks people tend to let nature do its thing).
One other fun note: I went past the end gate and actually ran past the section of sidewalk I tripped on in December. I had to prove I wasn’t cursed. Or if I am, it’s not specifically related to tripping on sidewalks.
Anyway, it was nice to be running again, and I know I’ll start feeling less like I have the world’s tiniest lungs soon enough.
New ex-tree on the river, with other ex-tree behind it.
Stats:
Run 909 Average pace: 6:03/km Training status: Productive Location: Brunette River Trail Start: 3:06 Distance: 2.50 km Time: 15:08 Weather: Cloudy Temp: 11°C Humidity: 76% Wind: light BPM: 150 Weight: 170.3 Total distance to date: 6,397.5 km Devices: Garmin Forerunner 255 Music, iPhone 12, AirPods (3rd generation) Shoes: Saucony Switchback (these are old shoes and will be replaced soon™)
When I first clicked the Cancel subscription button, it took me here:
From there, I had to keep scrolling to get to judgy I don’t want my subscription button, which lets you actually cancel:
I don’t blame Microsoft for making a pitch to keep me, and this is way easier than cancelling Amazon Prime, as it’s just a bit of scrolling on a single page.
Anyway, in less than a month, I am off the cloud and, uh, on the ground, or some other metaphor I haven’t quite worked out yet. I had used this sub mainly for the OneDrive storage, but Microsoft is a company I’m trying to minimize all contact with (see previous post) and this is one of the biggest steps I can take.
Not in UFOs and aliens that will save us from ourselves, that’s to be determined.
But I do believe in the power of us as individuals to resist big tech, to take back control, and, if incrementally, make the world a better place than it is now.
When I talk about The Culling, it’s not just a list of services or products I’m dropping to save money, it also represents taking away access from giant tech companies that are long past providing a good user experience and simply looking to extract as much value as they can from our personal data (and money from our wallets, if they can get that, too), it’s about regaining autonomy over my digital life and the collective data I’ve put out there since I connected my first 1200 baud modem1I skipped the 300 baud era, I’m not THAT old. to an online service. When I choose to put my photos and pictures on a local drive or NAS instead of “in the cloud”, it’s a decision to deny direct access to my personal files to a tech company that cares nothing for me as an individual except as an entity to be squeezed out of as much money and information as possible, to make it richer, even though it already generates more wealth than it could ever need.
So yeah, it’s also, in a way, a protest of sorts against the unfettered capitalism that has poisoned the western world in particular, where avarice and the constant need for more has perverted companies into rent-seeking, data-pillaging monsters.
I’ve said it before and will echo it again now: There are no more tech good guys when it comes to the big tech companies, if there ever were.
None of these companies truly want to do what’s best for their customers. They just want your money and all of your personal information:
Apple
Google
Microsoft
Meta
And so many others that aren’t quite as big as these four
That isn’t a ranked list, BTW, but if it was, Meta would be #1 with a bullet, as they are quite literally OK with people dying if it gets their platforms engagement. Anyone using any of their services should stop right now–you are enabling one of the most monstrously rotten companies on the planet.
In the meantime, I’m over here, still trying to determine the best new home for my blog, to get it away from WordPress and the control of a single person who has started an unhinged crusade to “protect” it, no matter how many people or companies he hurts or destroys along the way, and reducing my online presence across the board. I read blogs again. I participate on Mastodon, a social media platform that has no ads, no algorithm and no incentives or structure to add either. It’s quieter, it’s nicer, and it’s more human.
We can have a better future, we just need to keep pushing for it, and put in the effort to make the changes we want to see.
Where: Reifel Bird Sanctuary (Delta), Everett Crowley Park (Vancouver), Piper Spit, Burnaby Lake (Burnaby) Weather: Sun and high cloud, 7-14°C
The Outing
Reifel Bird Sanctuary
Moodly-looking marshland.
I missed the snow at Reifel in the sense that I was not there when the snow was. I did not otherwise miss it. Today it was mostly sunny and quite mild, with temperatures well above normal and little to no wind.
We didn’t have to go far to find the Sandhill cranes, as three of them milled around us right at the entrance. A sad note here, as one of the nearly adult-size babbies disappeared a few weeks and has not been seen, despite park volunteers looking for it, or signs of it. The others were wandering about in that nonchalant way of theirs. We also had our best view of the night heron, which was still not great.
The great blue heron were mostly seen from a distance, and one of their usual spots in the slough near the entrance had been taken over by the largest gathering of turtles I’ve seen there, spread out among the logs and basking in the sun.
After shooting the cranes, we headed up the East Dyke trail and saw a large blob of people ahead, gathered in the area where owls have been spotted. They had spotted an owl, specifically an adorable little Northern saw-whet owl (less adorable if you’re a vole or field mouse). Even better, I got probably my best owl shots ever, which is admittedly not a high bar, since almost all of my previous shots ranged from bad to “I swear there’s an owl there.”
Chickadees were in short supply, which seemed odd, but we did see a few wood ducks, the geese had returned and honked regularly to remind you they had done so. Towhees were once again out in large numbers. No sign of any spring migrants yet.
And eagles. Everywhere we saw eagles, flying in circles in groups of about six to eight, all over the place. Maybe a social thing? It was a good way to test the strength of my arms, as to get shots I had to point the camera straight up at the sky. The shots I got were okay, but Nic fared a bit better.
I got my first-ever shots of a trio of hummingbirds at one feeder, all drinking instead of fighting. Some of the shots were pretty decent, woo.
Reifel was also quite busy, which was not surprising given how mild it was. Overall, it felt like we moved through more quickly than usual, but we both got good shots, so that was OK.
Everett Crowley Park
Avalon Pond, where a few ducks were hanging out.
This was a new place for us and a rare bit of birding in Vancouver proper. The park is nice enough and has nice, wide trails and a cute little pond called Avalon Pond, where we saw a few mallards. However, many of the trails are off-leash for dogs and this is obviously a very popular spot for dog walkers, which is not great for birding, as birds and dogs do not normally act like best buds together. We did see a junco and a few robins, and one song sparrow. BUT…one of the robins was leucistic up in the hizzy, with a lot of white all over parts of its body that are normally not white, giving it a distinctive and snazzy look. This pretty much made the trip worthwhile. That said, we probably won’t come back, due to the dogs.
There were signs noting that No nuisance barking was allowed. I wonder where the line is between acceptable and nuisance barking is?
Also, it doesn’t state who shouldn’t dig, so I assume the rule applies to both dogs and people. Several large holes indicated this rule was not always being observed.
Barking your shin is allowed, but not recommended.
Piper Spit
View from Piper Spit, looking east.
The sun had mostly disappeared between high clouds at Piper Spit, which made us sad, and our trip to the rowing pavilion yielded no birds other than pigeons, though we did get some scenery shots.
At the spit itself, the usual gang was there, including a gull that was very proud of the golf ball it had procured. There was duck drama, but the coots seemed relatively well-behaved. The geese were honking and being weird and one on the pier got nippy, and also started showing its tongue, which is something you should never see or ever want to see.
In good news, the dowitchers were back. In less good news, they were on the west side of the pier, which is bad from a lighting perspective. Nothing some post-processing magic can’t fix, I suppose.
There were also quite a few people here, many holding out their hands to feed the blackbirds and one person bravely risking all of her fingers by letting a goose eat from her hand. I would only do this while wearing industrial gloves. And a welding mask.
In all, a nice mix of old and new, with perfectly pleasant weather that beat the ice and snow of our last outing a few weeks back.
The Shots
Soon?™
The Birds (and other critters). Rare or rarely-seen birds highlighted in bold.
I said this to Nic tonight in reference to him checking what people on eBird have reported seeing at a local park where we’re planning to do some birding.
The full question I posed was:
Remember surprises, before the internet?
It’s nice to be able to research things in advance, but I feel we’re losing something by constantly doing that and stripping away all surprise and mystery from…everything. Little things, big things, medium-sized things. Just look it up! No need to imagine, or wonder, just look it up, be as efficient as possible and leave nothing to chance.
I might be turning into a cranky old man, but really, I think I’m just kind of fed up with the way the world is. We’re losing our humanity in ways that we may never recover. But maybe we’re destined to be giant throbbing brains, anyway. How many quatloos would you bet on that?
Technically, spring doesn’t start for another 20 days, but look at these photos and note that it is currently 15C as I type this. For the moment, at least, it’s already here.
A fresh shoot basking in the sunshine.An early bloom poking through the moss and dead leaves.
I rarely open the iCloud program on my Windows PC, but when I have recently, this is what I see:
The circle of coloured dots slowly spins mesmerizingly as it teases that it’s “Signing in…” but it never signs in. Until I go to icloud.com in my browser, relaunch the program, and then it works. I don’t know if this is a coincidence, but it has “fixed” the issue each time.
More quality work from the company devoted to squeezing as much as it can from its customers, because tens of billions in pure profit is not enough. I know I promised not to gripe about Apple as much on this blog anymore, but they make it so easy now.
But I do promise to not gripe as much going forward. For reals. If for no other reason than I use Apple devices increasingly less these days.
