Apple at the Langara Golf Course. Yes, you can hit a ball and pick a fruit.
Month: September 2018
Weird rain
Weird in that today is the first time in a long while that we have had fairly steady rain during the day.
School kids were probably fuming. This is the first weekend since classes started.
Other signs of impending fall:
- The swimming pool at Hume Park is closed for the season, and has been drained. The slide is still in place, so if someone really wanted to, they could climb up it and slide down into a nearly four foot deep concrete hole. Probably not recommended.
- Likewise, the bubble over the tennis courts at the Burnaby Tennis Club (which I can see on my runs at Burnaby Lake) has been put back in place. It looks like a big oval marshmallow. Mmm. marshmallows. People would have been able to play tennis today because it’s up, so good timing there.
- The sunset tonight was at 7:37 p.m. The post-dinner walks are going to be spooky pretty soon.
- It never got past 20ºC today. In fact I don’t think it got past 16. Brr, relatively speaking.
I’m not complaining about the change in weather, mind you, as we need the rain and despite a slow start in July, the summer has been pretty dry overall. Still, I always lament this season’s passing. The world just feels so alive and vibrant in the summer.
I will now count the days until next summer. Actually, thanks to a Google search, I now know it’s 265 days. I’m undecided on whether this precise level of knowledge is a good or bad thing.
Run 595: The mysterious bladder
Run 595
Average pace: 5:41/km
Location: Burnaby Lake (CW)
Start: 12:34 pm
Distance: 5:04 km
Time: 28:38
Weather: Cloud, some sun
Temp: 17-19ºC
Humidity: 71%
Wind: light to moderate
BPM: 160
Weight: 161.4 pounds
Total distance to date: 4555 km
Devices: Apple Watch, iPhone 8
I missed Thursday’s planned run due to a mysterious soreness in my abdomen that became more noticeable when walking or especially when walking quickly. I figured it would make for an unpleasant run. It diminished yesterday and today I felt it was worth risking.
My best guess (I’m not a doctor and I don’t play one on TV) is it’s my bladder acting up, possibly a minor infection caused by being a man of my age. My plan was to let it go a few days and see if it got worse, then make a trip to the clinic if it did. Since it didn’t get worse I went for a run instead.
And while I felt it in a distant sort of way it only happened briefly and ended up not being a factor at all.
The knees, though, were a bit creaky, possibly from the four days off, though they also didn’t seem to slow me down.
The forecast warned of possible thunderstorms and while it showered in the morning, the afternoon consisted on non-threatening cloud and occasional sun. The breeze was up, but the conditions were overall quite pleasant for running.
Despite being only a degree or two cooler than Monday, there were no topless runners today. The threat of rain did mean the balance between runners and walkers was much closer, though.
I got off to a zipper-than-expected start, my first km coming in at 5:28. As expected, this emptied most of the tank for the next few km, though I picked up to 5:38/km by the last km and finished overall at 5:41/km, two seconds better than Monday’s pace and the third consecutive run where my pace has improved. BPM was back down to 160 and other than the aforementioned knees, no real issues, though I felt I worked a bit harder at points today.
If I stay on schedule the next run will be on Tuesday, when the sun sets at 7:33 p.m. That’s still well after I would be done, but it’s getting close to where the gap is only about 30 minutes. Once again summer has gone by way too fast.
Photo of the Day, September 7, 2018
Sapperton station at sunrise.
Request for Summer 2018 in Haiku form
I know this is almost like asking for winter to start in October, so I want to make it very clear I AM NOT ASKING FOR WINTER TO START IN OCTOBER.
That said, my Haiku:
Summer you burned me
And half the province as well
It’s fine to stop now
By coincidence the forecast is calling for showers tomorrow.
Photo of the day, September 5, 2018
Tree. Bark.
Book review: Conquering Writer’s Block and Summoning Inspiration: Learn to Nurture a Lifestyle of Creativity
Conquering Writer’s Block and Summoning Inspiration: Learn to Nurture a Lifestyle of Creativity by K.M. Weiland
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I love short books on writing, it’s so easy to blast through them and then apply their lessons–provided they include advice on overcoming procrastination, of course.
Weiland’s slim how-to covers everything from cultivating the mindset for ideas, establishing good habits and how to deal with the inevitable feelings of “my writing sucks now and forever more.”
The specific tips for avoiding writer’s block itself are copious and for the most part familiar to anyone who may have read similar guides, ranging from the easy to follow (“Take a break”) to the may-need-a-few-tries-to-work (“Show up every day” and “Just start typing”).
This is another perfectly fine book for a new author to peruse, or for anyone who yearns to write but is unhappy with both the quality and quantity of their output. There’s nothing revelatory, but Weiland’s writing style is light, engaging and the brevity of the work (and use of lists) makes it serve as a handy reference you can return to time and again
Recommended.
Now I just need to write something other than reviews on writing books. 😛
The one rule about typing club…
…would probably be “don’t make typos.”
On a whim I plugged in my old Filco 87-key keyboard with brown switches to see how they felt after not using the keyboard for awhile and it’s actually better than I remember. The keys are tactile without the same CLACK as blues, but still satisfying to a certain degree, and less noisy.
With the Filco still plugged in and in the mood for some typing, I did a search for “learn to type” and landed at typingclub.com. It was eager to invite me to take the first lesson, which consisted of typing F and J a lot (the home keys, as the billions of people who can touch type already know). I dutifully went through Lesson 1 and got the following results:
I’m not sure what real accuracy is, other than the apparent opposite of fake accuracy. But look, I passed all the requirements and was invited to move on. This scares me, because Mavis Beacon started out very encouraging, too, before basically saying I was slow and a bit dumb, but I’ll let you skip ahead so you don’t cry and make a scene, okay?
26 wpm compares to my usual three-fingers-look-at-the-keyboard-a-lot method’s average of 45 wpm or so. The gap between the two is sadly not that great to close, testimony to how slow I currently type.
I may try Lesson 2 or another program, or just recall Mavis’s cruel smile and switch to voice dictation. We’ll see.
Photo of the Day, September 4, 2018
Construction at Royal Columbian Hospital, with bonus crow perched inconspicuously on building.
Photo of the Day, September 3, 2018
Deer Lake Brook, from the Burnaby Lake Loop. Yes, it actually makes sense!
Run 594: Tourist trap and topless runners
Run 594
Average pace: 5:43/km
Location: Burnaby Lake (CCW)
Start: 12:08 pm
Distance: 5:03 km
Time: 28:51
Weather: Cloud, some sun
Temp: 19-20ºC
Humidity: 54%
Wind: light to moderate
BPM: 163
Weight: 161.7 pounds
Total distance to date: 4550 km
Devices: Apple Watch, iPhone 8
Today’s run was mostly a repeat of Saturday’s, but with a few minor differences–it was very slightly cooler, the clouds managed to obscure the sun for the entire run (it cleared up after on the walk out) and I improved my pace by another three seconds. My BPM was also up slightly to 163, but that’s to be expected as I worked a little harder.
A pleasant breeze was blowing for most of the run, providing a nice bit of refreshment along the way.
It was also kind of crowded, as it usually is on stat holidays, with many people out for a walk, as well as a larger than normal number of joggers. This wasn’t really an issue, as even the “oh, I didn’t see you!” people were able to get out of the way before an inevitable collision. Strangely, at least three male joggers were topless. I say this was strange because it’s rare to see any guy running topless, let alone a gaggle of them. The first one zipped by me before I began my run, as I was looking for a place to pee (I’ll get to that in a moment).
He had a perfectly bronzed and perfectly chiseled body, so obviously did more than run. He didn’t have any earbuds or phone with him. He was here to run, not enjoy himself. He looked very serious. And he wasn’t jogging, he was running. He zoomed by. I estimated that I would see him again somewhere on the Cottonwood Trail, once I got started.
I was delayed a few minutes because I had to pee (no surprise) and the Jiffy John® was occupied (also no surprise). But when the occupant vacated the loo, a bee buzzed me and I backed off to prevent getting stung and the like. Then I noticed more bees gathered around the Jiffy John, including some buzzing along the bottom of the door, which has a generous-sized gap (generous for a bee, anyway). I contemplated the possibility of sharing the potty with one or more bees and maybe getting stung before the run.
I decided to pee elsewhere.
There’s a big tree on the other side of the dam and in the summer the surrounding foliage provides ample cover, so I relieved myself there and headed off.
After that it was pretty much smooth sailing, with no discomfort, no issues. I started slower so there weren’t the dramatic swings in the splits like Saturday, bit overall my pace improved. This was even nicer as counter-clockwise is the “hard” way.
I also ran more aggressively post-run, putting in what I estimate as probably about three km of running after officially finishing the 5K. I’m probably ready to try a 10K. My knees are afraid.
Overall, though, another good effort. Yay me.
Book review: Plot Gardening: Write Faster, Write Smarter
Plot Gardening: Write Faster, Write Smarter by Chris Fox
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
This is a perfectly cromulent book on outlining a novel and Fox goes into detail on two popular methods, the traditional three-act approach and the perhaps less-familiar story circle.
Running with the gardening metaphor, Fox provides step-by-step instructions and illustrates them with examples from several popular movies (relying primarily on Star Wars) and also drawing from his own work–including examples where he failed, and then learned from the failure.
Each chapter has exercises to follow at the end and Fox knows a lot of people will just read straight through, so he has thoughtfully included all exercises again at the end of the book.
Overall, there’s not much more you could ask for in a book about outlining a novel. Fox explains everything in a clear manner, provides examples, and even throws in a bit of neuroscience here and there. Despite all this, I never found the book overly engaging, perhaps because I’ve always resisted outlining my stories–and I can’t claim they’ve been better for this lack, either.
Still, don’t let my own indifference sway you–this is a well-constructed template on how to outline a novel and would serve any new novel writer well.