Month: August 2022

Jet overhead, a before and after comparison

The title of this post is very on the nose.

Here’s a comparison of the original photo of a jet flying overhead that I recently took with my Canon EOS M50 camera, and then a version of the photo after I tweaked the contrast and color a bit in Luminar AI:

The changes are pretty obvious:

  • The sky is no longer completely blasted out, allowing the mix of high cloud and blue to show
  • The blue of the aircraft underside has been boosted a bit, not to exaggerate it, but to make it look more as it actually appeared
  • The overall contrast of the jet was adjusted, to better bring out detail in the structure (when looking at a smaller version of the photo, it may simply look darker; the detail is best seen at full or near-full size)

Now, you could argue that the bright, overexposed sky of the original works because it puts the jet in stark contrast to it, effectively highlighting it more than my tweaked version. And I would agree–but it’s also a matter of preference. Overall, I like the tweaked version because to my eye it’s a better representation of what I saw, and does not try to misrepresent the object(s) depicted. For example, Luminar AI lets you add giraffes to the sky (yes, it really does), but I did not add any giraffes! Or hot air balloons, or bald eagles, or any of the other silly things you can put in to spice things up.

Tweaking photos is now something I find almost as enjoyable as the actual shooting of the photos themselves. Maybe I just have a need to fix things.

No, the stylesheet didn’t go haywire

I tinkered with the color of links last night and went for some kind of blue, but it’s just temporary as I mull The Great Blog Redesign of 2022. Yes, I’m committing to doing it this year, which means I have just under five months to keep to my self-imposed schedule.

We’ll see how it goes!

Run 700: The thighs that bind

Best news: No bears!
Good news: Only 22C instead of 32C like on Sunday.
Bad news: Humidity was still 58%. What is the deal with the high humidity this summer?
Ominous news: My upper left thigh was sore right at the start of the run and stayed sore throughout.

I mulled about doing only 5K early on, but pressed through and toward the end the thigh didn’t feel as sore, though I’m pretty sure endorphins had kicked in at that point, numbing my brain to the pain.

I have no idea why the thigh was sore. Maybe I did something in my sleep. I could set up a webcam to find out, but it would probably be like watching a found footage movie and creep me out. Despite the thorny thigh, I still finished with a perfectly cromulent pace of 6:05/km. The difference in temperature really helped, as did the partially cloudy sky. I like the sun, but it’s nice to not have it relentlessly beating down on you while you run. Stamina-wise, I felt fine throughout, so the actual 10 km distance wasn’t an issue.

I’m also impressed at how steady my pace is. I hit exactly 150 for my average BPM, though it dipped a little below and above that at various points.

In all, my official 700th run was good (I probably have a dozen or so that went uncounted in my early days of running). Here’s hoping the thigh behaves better on Friday.

Stats:

Run 700
Average pace: 6:05/km
Location: Burnaby Lake (CCW)
Start: 11:31 a.m.
Distance: 10.03 km
Time: 61:06
Weather: Partly sunny
Temp: 22ºC
Humidity: 58%
Wind: light
BPM: 150
Weight: 163.7
Total distance to date: 5130 km
Devices: Apple Watch Series 5, iPhone 12, AirPods (3rd generation)
Shoes: Brooks Caldera 5 (238 km)

Oh yeah, the pandemic

What’s weird is the pandemic is very much an ongoing thing. I think the closest it felt to being behind us was right at the start of July 2021. Here in BC daily cases were down to the 30s, with some health regions reporting no new cases. We’d just entered the third stage of a four stage “back to business” plan that saw the mask mandate lifted and most other restrictions eased. The final step was to come September 7th, when remaining restrictions went away, life returned to normal and we could all look forward to watching terrible movies about the pandemic and chuckle together about what a weird time it was!

Of course, what actually happened is the more contagious Delta variant popped up, cases took a huge jump up, restrictions were re-introduced and by mid-August the mask mandate would be back in place and stay there until March 11, 2022.

But here it is August 2022, and we have yet another super-contagious variant running amok, this time Omicron BA.5. Most people have been vaccinated and received at least one booster shot, but the idea of herd immunity is long forgotten, replaced by the acceptance that most people are probably going to catch COVID-19, some multiple times, and hopefully long COVID won’t be as horrible as it might seem.

And yet, with all numbers going in the wrong direction, the general attitude seems to be a collective shrug. Masks remain optional, and mask usage has declined steadily since March. There are very few restrictions, and everyone has basically been told to watch out for themselves (and hopefully others). There has been talk about a possible renewal of the mask mandate in the fall if numbers keep going up, but I don’t see that happening unless hospitals start getting seriously taxed.

It feels like we’ve come to accept COVID-19 as a really persistent flu bug and we’re all just spinning the wheel and taking our chances on if and when we get sick. In a way this isn’t even a bad thing, because we have to move past the pandemic mentality at some point.

But I do wonder when we’ll be able to talk about the pandemic in the past tense. It feels like we’re a long way away right now, and even though life has mostly reverted to what passes for normal, I feel an unease about all of this not quite being over, and what it may hold for the future.

On a more positive note, kittens!

BC Day 2022 recap: Birds, birds and no parking

We hit four (!) places yesterday. It was still warm, but not quite Africa hot at 28C. Humidity is still weirdly high and gross. The birding went like so:

  • Burnaby Lake. Much busier than usual, but expected on a statutory holiday. A family showed us a photo they had on a phone of some critter they’d seen and asked if we could identify it. In 10+ years of running, walking and taking photos at Burnaby Lake, I had never seen the creature in question. It looked a bit like a ferret or a marmot with a dog’s head. It was weird. We saw a white mallard at Piper Spit, too, so it was a day for odd sightings, apparently.
  • Colony Farm. We did not see much here and the humidity was oppressive, even if the sun was screened a lot by high cloud. We did see an Eastern king bird, but the cedar waxwings that were in abundance last visit were completely gone.
  • Como Lake. We were driving by, and I’d never been, so we stopped by. This is a small urban (though natural) lake with a one km path around it, so it didn’t take long to check out. Got some nice scenery shots, but only saw a few ducks. They had temporary fencing/netting on one side of the lake at entry points into the water to discourage geese from hanging around, due to their “excessive numbers.” It must be working, because we didn’t see a single goose there.
  • Rocky Point in Port Moody. We tried to visit here, but could not find any parking in the available lots or nearby streets. The smart people walked in or took transit. We ended up leaving without even stopping. Sad trombone.

Here’s a shot of the white mallard and its entourage:

BC Day 2022

It’s BC Day, the statutory holiday where we take time to celebrate the province while acknowledging our terrible colonial past, horrible treatment of indigenous peoples and more. So maybe just pretend you know someone with the initials BC and celebrate them instead.

Bad news: The heat warning is still in effect today.

Better news: The expected high of 28C will still feel a lot nicer than the 33-35C we’ve had for the past week.

Good news: Going out birding today, including Burnaby Lake. This time my camera is in the camera bag. Woo.