Weather was mostly nice, except for all the forest fires everywhere. Locally it was sunny, but not usually too hot and humidity is lower compared to last summer.
I resumed running at a more regular pace and my right knee is improving.
Sexy legs, now nicely tanned.
Progress continues on my epic game.
I have kept up writing on this blog.
I’m still not working in tech support.
My social media intake has gone down. This has made me very slightly happier.
We’ve decided to get rid of our cable TV package. This will make me slightly happier, too. And save us a heap of money over the year as a bonus.
The Bad:
My weight went up 2.5 pounds
I got hit with what was probably some flu bug, and while it didn’t hit hard, save for a day or so, it lingered on for weeks before finally going away. Long enough that I appreciated feeling healthy again afterward.
We have a mouse. It is not a pet.
My left running shoe has a hole that is opening up like the San Andreas Fault during The Big One.
Knees: I felt the right knee twinge a bit in the latter part of the run, but it wasn’t hurting, and I don’t think it impacted my performance. As I write this an hour or so later, the knee is feeling fine.
After Saturday’s mega-birding trek, my upper right leg/hip started to feel sore and while it began feeling better through Sunday, I was still unsure on whether I’d run today. This morning, however, I felt fine, so headed off for a minimalist river run1A minimalist run is one where I minimize the amount of walking, so in this case I start the run as soon as I get to the river trail, which is after about a 1.5 km walk. This compares to having to walk 4 km to run at the lake.. Conditions were good—sunny but not hot and humidity exactly the same at 53%, which meant my mouth wouldn’t get overly dry. I brought the water bottle and used it twice, though could possibly have skipped it.
And even though my average pace was back below 6:00/km, I felt weirdly sluggish and tired for the run. I wasn’t overly exerting myself–my BPM was down to 149 for large portions of the run, so I’m not sure what it was. In any case, I finished and overall it was okay, but not like socks-rolling-up-and-down fantastic or anything.
Regarding the tiny new route extension: When I run the river trail, I normally run past the gate at the end of the trail/service road and down the sidewalk to the intersection of Cariboo Road and Cariboo Place. Today, I daringly ran on past it, as detailed in the shot of the run map below. Why did I do this? Was I feeling extra zany? Trying to escape, somehow? Blazing a new trail? I think I secretly wanted to end the run a bit earlier, so I wouldn’t have as far to walk back. In reality, the distance would still be about the same, but psychologically it would feel like less. The mind is a strange place.
I will ponder what to do on Wednesday.
View of the river, post-run
Stats:
Run 792Average pace: 5:56/kmTraining status: Productive
Location: Brunette River Trail
Start: 11:15 a.m.
Distance: 5.03 km
Time: 29:49
Weather: Sunny
Temp: 21ºC
Humidity: 53%
Wind: light
BPM: 151
Weight: 167.3
Total distance to date: 5840 km
Devices: Garmin Forerunner 255 Music, iPhone 12, AirPods (3rd generation)
Shoes: Saucony Peregrine 12 (510 km)
Yes, I know. How did this happen? Was it donuts? I had a few snacky days, but no real set pattern of snacking, so I’m not altogether sure what caused the weight gain (I added 0.4 pounds just today, which makes it look even worse).
I have decided for August that I must go cold turkey on snacking. Which means no snacking at all–not even cold turkey! I may allow myself the occasional banana or apple, nothing else.
The month started strong, with me down to 164.8 pounds, then got even better the second day when I dropped a massive 1.8 pounds to an even 163. I was also sick with the flu.
Once I got healthy, the fat came back, then it was a rollercoaster of up and down for the rest of the month, but trending more up than down and here we are in Fatville at the end of the month, population me.
One bit of good (?) news: My body fat percentage has gone from 24.3 to 23.9 in the past month, so maybe I’m just building lots of muscle! (I’ll ignore the fact that on January 1 it was 23.1%)
In a way, deciding to go snack-free, no exceptions, is liberating. I don’t have to think about it, I just know that if it’s not a part of a meal, I don’t eat it. Done!
We’ll see if this all proves to be a sham on August 31!
Stats:
Weight:
January 1, 2023: 164.2 pounds
Current: 167.3 pounds
Year to date: Up 3.1 pounds
July 1: 164.8 pounds
July 31: 167.3 pounds (up 2.5 pounds)
Body fat:
July 1: 24%
July 31: 23.9% (down 0.1%)
Historical:January 1, 2022: 182.8 pounds
No more billionaires. Technically not an invention, but it’s my list, so it stays.
The holodeck. Yep, the holodeck. Not this “put a stupid-looking piece of gear on your face” VR/AR stuff. I don’t care if Apple calls it “spatial computing”, it still looks dumb and no one wants to wear one of these things on their heads for hours at a time.
The Undo Device. Lets you undo any decision you’ve made and all of its consequences. This would, of course, lead to new and more horrible consequences, in true Twilight Zone-style, but I’m willing to risk it.
Purple cats
Replaceable body parts
A microwave oven that works the way we imagine a microwave oven should work
Reifel: We arrived a bit early, and it was somewhat busy at the start, with lots of families out feeding the ducks and such. The kids were generally not terrorizing the birds. Near the first slough, we caught sight of a goose that was both banded and had some kind of module around its neck, with the designation C19. C19 did not seem to mind the thing. We later saw two geese (one of them was possibly C19) and they were clearly not concerned with the tracking (?) devices, as they were snoozing. And speaking of terrorizing and geese, one of them was going full-on berserk by the aforementioned slough. We didn’t encounter too many others on the trails directly, though they were ever-present.
The ponds are continuing to see a lot of bloom and one particularly slimy and had a group of ducks swimming and dunking in it, which led to them being covered, seaweed-like, in the stuff. Scum ducks. Like C19, they didn’t seem to mind their particular condition.
The blackbirds were gathered around the tower as usual, and one juvenile was especially insistent that he be fed. His dad was totally not having it, constantly flying off a short distance, only to be followed by the demanding youngster, its maw open in that FEED ME NOW pose. I got some good shots on that particularly bird. I imagine it eventually got some seed on its own. Or maybe it ran away from home, to guilt-trip its parents.
We heard but never saw any chickadees (or at least I never caught a glimpse of one). But there was a marsh wren and some waxwings and a harrier, which has been absent for quite some time. Finally, we saw oodles of shorebirds (mainly dowitchers), which have been scarce of late, and made good use of the bird blind we rarely visit on the east side of the main pond to better observe them.
Centennial Beach: Raptor Trail once again failed to live up to its name, but we saw some herons, a few somewhat distant killdeer and a new lifer for both of us–a Bonaparte seagull (named after a cousin of the emperor, who apparently contributed a lot to ornithology back in the 1830s). We also had a Savannah sparrow handily land on a rope fence right in front of us, just long enough to get a few photos. Nic was pleased. The tide was in, making the beach look rather ordinary, and it was also very windy. Kites were flying, and I watched someone’s beach umbrella get loose and start tumbling. Amazingly, it managed to avoid hitting anything before getting stuck in the sand.
We also discussed art and AI here, which has nothing to do with birds. Overall, not a great amount of birds here, but it’s always a nice visit when you’re not getting assaulted by driving hail.
Tsawwassen Beach: After making the semi-treacherous sprint across the highway to the ferry terminal, we walked along the beach until I noticed a proper trail running next to it. We got all civilized by moving onto it and headed off, spotting herons, terns, tons of geese and near a pedestrian bridge, a lot of barn swallows (and possibly others) that were nesting underneath the bridge and hunting in the river and waterways nearby. There were also sandpipers and killdeer and–baby killdeer! They’re fluffy and adorable. We also came across a spot where dozens of seagulls were hanging out on a couple of pseudo-islands near the shore. The trail goes on for quite a way, so we made a note to return and park further up and not on the opposite side of the highway. We shall return!
We ended by getting dinner at the nearby Tsawwassen Mills mega-mall. This has nothing to do with birding, but I’d never been before. The place is so big you can rent out vehicles to drive around inside the mall. You could probably hang glide in there, like a bird.
The Shots
I made Nic pick photos from my batch to go into this gallery. He was openly uncomfortable doing this, which kind of delighted me. He selected 32 photos in total, which I further narrowed down to 10. I may add in a few more later. It’s my first “curated” gallery!
Sandhill crane grooming
Mallard demonstrating flapping technique to a fellow duck
Young blackbird getting cranky because no one will bring it food
Woodland skipper on a dandelion
Spider trundling along its webbing, bypassing a dandelion head that got snagged in it
A pair of long-billed dowitchers dunking in a pond
View of Centennial Beach with tide incoming
Savannah sparrow at Centennial Beach
Mystery shovel at Tsawwassen Beach. Was someone digging for treasure or burying it? Or was it aliens? Who can say?
In this case, the teen is a young blackbird at Reifel Bird Sanctuary, and it really wasn’t in a mood to get its own food. Here it is protesting and flapping in a tree after dad took off to a spot nearby. More birding shots from Saturday in a full gallery soon™.
A company that makes security robots has a photo on their website (you can find it if you’re diligent–I have faith in you!) of several of their models. I have added some text to better provide how I, as a common non-robot human being, rate their creepiness factor.
After today’s run, I spotted a clutch of mushrooms, possibly aided by the showers on Monday and Tuesday. I snapped a few quick photos and here they are in a lovingly handcrafted mini-gallery.
Mushroom at ground levelAccidental photo of me taking a photo of mushroomsMushrooms huddling together for protection. They do that, right?Mushrooms in a row
I headed out today a bit later than I would have liked, and with humidity around 53%, decided to bring the water bottle.
But first, the knees! They were a tiny bit stiff after the run, and on the walk home, but not overly so, and for the run itself they were fine. I will monitor over the weekend, then decide whether to go ahead with Monday’s run or not. At this point, I expect to go.
OK, back to the run. As it turned out, the DMS1Dry Mouth Syndrome was minimal and I only sipped from the bottle once, around the 2K mark. I think I would have been fine without it, but if the humidity had been even a few percentage points lower, I’d have been pining for it. Noted for future reference.
I took the “easy” clockwise route and the first two km were under six minutes, but not by a lot. It was hotter and I felt like I was working harder and getting less out of it. The trend continued as every km I got slower, though my heart rate was a nice 151. I turned it around on the last km, where my pace picked up, but not enough to end with an overall of 6:05/km. Based on how much of a slog it felt like, I’m actually OK with that.
Overall, not exactly the fantastic end-of-week flourish I was hoping for, but it was perfectly adequate.
Still Creek, looking north, post-run
Stats:
Run 791Average pace: 6:05/kmTraining status: Overreaching
Location: Burnaby Lake (CW)
Start: 12:30 p.m.
Distance: 5.03 km
Time: 30:35
Weather: Sunny
Temp: 24ºC
Humidity: 53%
Wind: light
BPM: 151
Weight: 167.1
Total distance to date: 5835 km
Devices: Garmin Forerunner 255 Music, iPhone 12, AirPods (3rd generation)
Shoes: Saucony Peregrine 12 (505 km)
I came across ooh.directory, which is a site that aggregates blogs (1,966 as of this post). It’s a pleasant and consuming way to find writing focused on a particular subject or theme that isn’t beholden to algorithms and all that.
Also, I love the bizarre, bold combination of colours it uses: dark green, orange and light purple. And light pink, I think, for text, which somehow works with everything else.
At the time, I was checking the usual sites irregularly, as I’d switched to a bedtime routine of reading actual books. Since then, irregularly has become rarely. I just haven’t missed Instagram and Facebook, so this has been a kind of unintentional culling.
The reasons for why I haven’t missed them are summed up pretty much in the post linked above: Once I broke the routine of checking in every night, I found the content was just not interesting enough for me to tolerate the endless piles of “reels” and ads. Instead, I have been spending a bit more time on Mastodon, which has no ads (by design) and no algorithm (also by design). I only see what I want to see. I follow people, then unfollow if they don’t make my socks roll up and down. That is my bar now–you must magically animate my socks or off with you.
It’s worked out decently so far.
Part of me does kind of miss posting my photos regularly, but they were only seen by a handful of people anyway, and now I can focus on posting billions of photos to my blog instead! I think in some small way this may have slightly improved my mental health, too (not visiting FB and IG much, not the posting billions of photos to my blog part, though who can say for sure!)
