A few of the random photos I took while out and aboot today.
The Brunette River was unusually low, so I could get in to spots that are normally inaccessible without getting very wet. Here’s one of them:
It was Victoria Day and it seemed like all the birds had the day off. I did spot some wood ducks hanging out in the river, but wasn’t able to get any really good shots of them. Here’s one, anyway!
It’s just your basic dandelion, but I like the composition:
And here’s a shot of the big ol’ tree that fell last November, again from a perspective not normally available. It’s kind of weird how it forms an almost perfect bridge.
I normally never run on Sundays, but today the weather was very nice again and I was feeling wacky, so off I went to Burnaby Lake.
This time I chose to run clockwise and headed out under rare sunny skies. I knew after running Friday and doing a run/walk yesterday that I would want to dial it back a bit, so I adopted a more leisurely pace. I think it also helped that I was starting to feel genuinely a bit pooped from all the recent activity.
I experienced no issues and while the pace was a sloggy 6:27/km, I’m fine with that, as I was tired, it was warmer (up to 22C!) and my BPM reflected the gentler effort.
I’m not going to run tomorrow, though. For one, it’s a holiday and the trails always get really crowded. For another, I expect my legs to revolt if I dare to try.
But I’m glad I did today.
Also, another snake!
Stats:
Run 676Average pace: 6:27/km
Location: Burnaby Lake, CW
Start: 3:05 p.m.
Distance: 5:02 km
Time: 32.25
Weather: Sunny with some high cloud
Temp: 22ºC
Humidity: 41%
Wind: light
BPM: 152
Weight: 175.1
Total distance to date: 4983 km
Devices: Apple Watch Series 5, iPhone 12, AirPods (3rd generation)
Shoes: Brooks Caldera 5 (98 km)
I had planned on going out and taking photos of birds today, but the vehicle which was to convey me to the sanctuary did not start, so that got postponed to another day.
Instead, I muddled around for a bit, then got tired of looking at how beautiful it was out, and changed into my running clothes. Given that I was sore from yesterday’s workout I didn’t plan to actually do a run, but did end up doing some running, and more than planned, with my pace coming in at a pretty solid 8:14/km.
The most notable difference today came on the return back from the end of the river trail. I normally go through Lower Hume Park, then up the stairs than join lower to upper. Today I bypassed the lower section altogether and ran up the hill alongside the park, then cut it when I got to the upper entrance.
The view looks like this per Google Maps:
It’s not crazy steep, more of a steady incline. I kept jogging until it leveled off. I also jogged up the steeper but shorter part of Fader Street. Basically, if there was a hill, I ran up it.
I don’t know how much I will regret this tomorrow. Only a little, I think. But it was nice to get out again in sunny weather, and the urge to keep running instead of being a lazy so-and-so was welcome.
Stats:
Walk 66
Average pace: 8:14/km
Location: Brunette River trail
Distance: 7.50 km
Time: 61:43
Weather: Sunny
Temp: 18ºC
Humidity: 45%
Wind: low to moderate
BPM: 123
Weight: 174.9 pounds
Devices: Apple Watch Series 5, iPhone 12
Total distance to date: 494.40 km
Perpetually worried he may spot a crime in progress.
Angry Carrot and his henchpepper:
Still figuring out shadows and shading.
Looking at Angry Carrot now, I think the body lines may be too thick. I’ll try them thinner next time. Overall, I’m pleased with how these turned out, considering how little I’ve been drawing lately. I shall draw more.
It’s been more than three weeks since I last did a 5K run, so I once again opted to go slow ‘n steady. I suppose all the other walking and workouts in the meantime helped, as while my pace was slow (6:16/km), it was a fair bit peppier than the run on April 24, which followed the same route.
I did stop only a few hundred meters in, because there was a snake on the trail and I absolutely had to take a picture of it. Behold, snake:
This is a common garter snake of the valley variety. It casually slithered off after I took the photo (I cropped it–I tried not to get too close).
The first km of the run (post-snake) was perhaps faster than intended at 5:54/km. This often happens, as you start with boundless energy. By the second km I was deliberately holding back, and maybe went too far the other way, dropping to a sluggish 6:26/km. My pace held steady near the average for the last 3 km. I experienced no cramps or other issues, save for my left elbow being a bit sore. Why it was sore I don’t know. It didn’t seem to be from running, it’s just the swinging motion while running accentuated that it was sore. Maybe I slept on it.
As it was a weekday afternoon–and the weather was delightfully normal, which it hasn’t been for most of May–the trail was not crowded. I saw a few other runs, including a guy who was maybe around 20 and was running without a shirt to show off his ridiculously flat stomach. He didn’t have killer abs or anything, his mid-section was just utterly flat. It looked unnatural. I was jealous. He passed me a second time, still looking like the jog wasn’t causing him to expend any energy at all. This also made me jealous.
The geese were on the sports field, with gaggles of goslings in a variety of sizes. I didn’t see anything else other than a few squirrels and a pair of forlorn male wood ducks.
In all, it was nice to get out for another run, and the better pace was a pleasant bonus. I shall do this again soon. Not soon™, actual soon!
I am thinking of looking into new running shoes, though. The Calderas are fine, but I’m not crazy with the way they lace up. Also, the laces are weirdly super-long. I might check out reviews of the latest Speedgoats. I loved those things, other than how they dyed my socks new and interesting colors.
Stats:
Run 675Average pace: 6:16/km
Location: Burnaby Lake, CCW
Start: 1:06 p.m.
Distance: 5:03 km
Time: 31.33
Weather: Sunny with some high cloud
Temp: 17ºC
Humidity: 51%
Wind: light
BPM: 157
Weight: 173.2
Total distance to date: 4978 km
Devices: Apple Watch Series 5, iPhone 12, AirPods (3rd generation)
Shoes: Brooks Caldera 5 (98 km)
Good ol’ clickbait! Here’s how the above headline was presented in my Medium Weekly Digest newsletter:
Want to know what the amazing productivity hack is?
“Send everything to the trash first, then pull out from the trash what’s important.”
Yes, the author literally advocates deleting all your email from the inbox, then going to the trash/deleted items folder and pulling out what you really want to keep.
Or, you know, don’t subscribe to a bunch of crap you never read in the first place? Then there’s no need for any kind of multistep process, because all the junk email you don’t want or need never arrives! That’s my amazing productivity hack.
The author alleges that “By the end of the day, there were more than 50 emails chillaxing in my new digital Zen space. How dare they! And they were nearly early all spam — including stuff I thought I’d unsubscribed from, blocked, or banned.” This sounds rather fishy. First, she uses the huge caveat of “I thought I’d…” which probably means “I never did”, or she has catastrophically bad filtering on her email account. Or both. Also, how do you “ban” email?
Here’s another amazing productivity hack: Don’t waste your time reading stories like this, or even blog posts like this one deconstructing them. Go play with a puppy or kitten instead. Hug a tree. Talk to a plant. East a cookie. Or one of the other billion trillion quadrillion things that would be a better use of your time.
Not quite this hefty–yet! Photo by mali maeder on Pexels.com
Today the weather was sunny and almost seasonal. I decided to celebrate by going out and taking birb pictures. But before going out, I contemplated wearing shorts. I ended up wearing my comfy covid sweatpants (to be fair, I got them pre-pandemic). But while I contemplated, I pulled out a nice pair of casual shorts, the kind I wore in summers of yore, size 31 waist. I pulled them on. I zipped up the zipper. I did the button up at the top of the zipper. As you can see, I remembered perfectly how to put on shorts.
There was one small problem, though. Or rather a big problem. A big FAT problem.
My waist.
My waist is currently not size 31. I daresay it is not 32 or maybe even 33, either. I think it may be back to my pre-2008 size of 34. Technically I could wear the shorts, but in this case technically is not the best kind of correct, because I was being squeezed to death by clothing. The only way wearing those shorts would have been practical in any way would have been through spontaneous and magical liposuction.
So I wore the sweatpants.
My weight is currently at a bit of a plateau at the moment, but it should start coming down again through the remainder of the month. Will it be enough to let me revisit the bygone days of being under 170 pounds before we (jelly) roll into June? Perhaps. I’d like to think that by then I could wear those size 31 shorts without having to give up breathing, but I know that is unlikely. So that is my goal, my north star–to be able to wear my size 31 shorts before the weather becomes inhospitable to exposing my legs to the elements.
Let’s have a look at how I did on my first day (a recap in case you arrived at this post directly):
Draw one thing (when lacking a specific subject, I will grab a prompt and limit myself to 5 minutes total time to get this done) DONE
Record a journal entry (using Diarium, which has a somewhat unfortunate name, but is cross-platform) DONE
Write a blog entry DONE
Take a photo of something. It doesn’t have to be good or even interesting, just a photo…of something. DONE
Exercise: Walk outside, walk on the treadmill, run on the treadmill or run outside. Or ride my bike, skip rope or something that can actually be considered exercise and isn’t like, “I lifted the TV remote 20 times today!” DONE
Spend time learning more of the software I use to become a professional expert of impressive knowledge or something. This includes:
Unity
Affinity Designer
Affinity Photo
Procreate
DaVinci Resolve
Blender
Visual Studio/C#
Obsidian
Various other 2D animation and other art programs DONE
Work in some way on my snazzy newsletter DONE
Yes, I went 7 for 7 on my first day. I gave myself an imaginary medal! I did better on some of these than others, but hey, I did it.
Now let’s see if I can maintain momentum for two entire days in a row.
Today, I wasn’t sure what I was going to do. I wasn’t even sure how to dress, other than not going out naked (it’s still a bit on the cool side). I finally opted for a double layer to protect against the wind, gambling that the rain would hold off–and it did!
My next decision was how much to walk vs. how much to run. What I ended up doing was this:
Walked just under 4 km to the end of the river trail
Ran the 2 km back to entrance of river trail
Walked partway back up river trail, then home, a little under 3 km
This makes the stats a bit tricky, so what I’m doing for today only is listing the combined walk stats first, then the run stats after.
As for the outing, it was nice to get out and get moving again. The treadmill is fine, but it’s so much nicer to be outside and actually have full control of when you stop and start and how fast you move. I went a bit slow ‘n steady on the run part and came in at an even 6:00/km, which is okay given how little I’ve been running. No cramps or other issues. Even my shoe laces stayed tied!
Now I just need to go more often and maybe have the weather get a wee bit closer to seasonal.
Stats:
Walk 65
Average pace: 9:12/km and 8.02/km
Location: Brunette River trail
Distance: 3.79 km and 2.80 km
Time: 34:55 and 22.28
Weather: Cloudy, some sun
Temp: 12ºC
Humidity: 61%
Wind: moderate to high
BPM: 124 and 138
Weight: 173.9 pounds
And the run, only including stats that are different:
Average pace: 6:00/km
Distance: 2.05 km
Time: 12:19
BPM: 160
Total distance to date: 478.26 km
Devices: Apple Watch Series 5, iPhone 12
Total distance to date: 486.90 km
Today I was feeling all nostalgic up in the hizzy and dug out two old music players, my 7th generation iPod nano and a Sansa Clip. Here they be:
iPod nano 7th generation and Sansa Clip
The Sansa Clip is the older of the two. It was the first MP3 player I got for running and it worked well, being extremely light, compact and having a clip that let you easily attach it to your shorts, shirt or gorgeously braided hair. I believe I got it in 2009, the same year I started jogging (I ended the year by doing my first 10K run and can’t imagine I would have done so without musical accompaniment). The one downside is the storage was a mere 2 GB, so it could only hold a hundred or so songs–enough for a run, but not a whole lot of variety.
The iPod nano I got in 2012 and replaced a 5th generation one. It featured some nice improvements:
Lightning port instead of the 30-pin connector
Bluetooth, although I never actually used it
Super light and thin, yet sturdy in construction
16 GB of storage, which couldn’t hold my entire music collection at the time but got close enough that I felt I wasn’t really missing anything I’d like to listen to while on a run
Built-in Nike+ app that no longer needed a foot pod to track steps/runs
It looks like an adorable miniature iPhone (running iOS 6, though it didn’t actually run iOS)
I used the nano (which was the last one Apple made, discontinuing it in 2017) until I switched over to using a smartphone to track runs, the first being an iPhone 5c. I quite liked it, though the touchscreen would go wonky when it got wet, making it less than ideal for soggy runs (not to be confused with having the soggy runs–ew). To be fair, the Apple Watch I now use has the same issues in the rain, although you can turn off the touch to prevent phantom taps and such. In the nano’s favor, it could transfer music about a billion times faster from my PC vs. transferring music from my phone to the Watch, a task that takes so long I have given up on doing it.
I kind of miss these dedicated single-purpose devices. Because they only did one thing*, the UI and buttons were very focused on driving that experience. This was especially appreciated for activities like running where you don’t want to fiddle with multi-level menus and excessive clicks.
Both devices still power up, as you can see from my pic. The Sansa Clip battery appears to be almost completely dead, though. It only stays awake for a few moments before warning the battery is low, even after charging. The nano is better, but even it looks like it would only last a fraction of what it normally might. Not surprising for something 10 years old. I wonder if the battery can be replaced? Hmm.
* Technically the iPod nano could do more than play music, as you could listen to podcasts, watch videos or look at photos, I didn’t do any of these things with mine, however.
One of the worst parts of Apple’s App Store success has been the move (encouraged heavily by Apple) toward Software as a Service (SaaS). This benefits both the developer and Apple because:
The developer gets a continuous revenue stream via ongoing subscription
Apple gets a continuous cut as it takes 30% of every subscription collected, in perpetuity (this can drop to 15% under some conditions)
This does not benefit the consumer, as they now might pay $50 per year in perpetuity for an app that once cost $50 total. In theory, the primary benefit to the consumer is ongoing, active development of the application, with the revenue stream providing stability the developers would lack if they sold their programs as a one-time purchase option.
I think that argument is largely bunk, and it made me stop using Ulysses for about a year and a half before I finally acquiesced and got a sub for it at a 25% off rate. But no more!
I have canceled or opted to not renew the software subscriptions I have, with a few exceptions.
A list! That is also a table! This shows the before and after apps, but not in that order.
Subscription-free replacement
Subscription-based app that was replaced
Diarium (journaling)
Day One
iA Writer, Scrivener (writing)
Ulysses
Affinity Photo (image editing)
Adobe Photoshop
Affinity Designer (vector image editing)
Adobe Illustrator
Obsidian (note-taking)
Craft
And the exceptions for which I still pay a subscription:
Microsoft 365. This is the family version, so it allows both me and my partner to access all the apps. While I do use Excel and Word sometimes, the main benefit of this is the 1 TB of OneDrive storage.
TickTick. I decided to try the paid version for a year, to see how it compares to going free. The calendar view, which is not available in the free version, turns out to be something I literally never use.
Todoist. I couldn’t decide between this and TickTick, so I am running both in tandem. It’s silly, but I’m a silly person. In six months I’ll pull the plug on at least one of these.
If you are software savvy™ you might note that some of the software that have subs can be used for free, albeit with some features disabled (Craft, Day One), while others, like Ulysses, cannot be used at all, apart from a brief trial period. Note also that none of the subscription apps are bad–they are all quite good, and some are industry standards (Photoshop, for example). And while it looks like it takes two apps to replace Ulysses, iA Writer and Scrivener have very different focuses and, unlike Ulysses, are cross-platform, which is another thing I’ve decided is critical to the software I use. All the replacement apps are available on Windows and macOS. In fact, they all have iOS versions, too.
If I end up having giant regrets over switching to the apps listed in the table above, I will make a follow-up post, complete with a well-chosen “I’m very remorseful” image. For now, I think this is the right call. I save money and also help support a model I prefer. Win-win!
I am feeling revitalized for reasons unknown and feel it’s time to exercise some discipline, make things happen and other assorted clichés.
Here’s my list of things I will be doing every day. Note: I have excluded essential things for healthy living or just living, period, like eating, sleeping, breathing and pooping.
Daily activities for 2022 and beyond™
Draw one thing (when lacking a specific subject, I will grab a prompt and limit myself to 5 minutes total time to get this done)
Record a journal entry (using Diarium, which has a somewhat unfortunate name, but is cross-platform)
Write a blog entry
Take a photo of something. It doesn’t have to be good or even interesting, just a photo…of something.
Exercise: Walk outside, walk on the treadmill, run on the treadmill or run outside. Or ride my bike, skip rope or something that can actually be considered exercise and isn’t like, “I lifted the TV remote 20 times today!”
Spend time learning more of the software I use to become a professional expert of impressive knowledge or something. This includes:
Unity
Affinity Designer
Affinity Photo
Procreate
DaVinci Resolve
Blender
Visual Studio/C#
Obsidian
Various other 2D animation and other art programs
Work in some way on my snazzy newsletter
I think that’s enough for now. Let’s see how well I do tomorrow, ho ho.
