Month: February 2024

New Year Resolutions 2024: Second month check-in

Here we go again.

First, the resolutions:

  1. Get to 150 pounds. But for real this time. Gotta go with the classics.
  2. Finish my prototype game. Title to be revealed soon™.
  3. Complete my blog redesign. Another classic. It could happen!
  4. Revive my newsletter. I am actually working on this now, and have moved from Substack to Buttondown for the hosting.
  5. Complete one of my unfinished novels. Likely either The Mean Mind or Road Closed. I’ve been itching to get back into writing again, and either of these stories will be fun to noodle around on.
  6. Start a new blog or something. I kind of have something in mind, we’ll see what happens.
  7. Focus on:
    • Being happy
    • Staying healthy
    • Bringing good into the world
    • Getting decent sleep, which will help with all of the above

And the results, after two months, by which time the average person has completely mind-wiped resolutions from their brains.

  1. I ended February down 3.5 pounds. A major breakthrough. Definite PROGRESS.
  2. The game has been on hold while dealing with condo stuff, which has somehow evolved into almost a full-time job.is in progress. PAUSED, but should resume in March.
  3. I have continued to tweak the blog a bit, but haven’t done much actual blogging. Still, I maintain this as IN PROGRESS.
  4. Nothing changed from what I wrote last month: I did not get out the first issue for January as promised, and I am rethinking the whole thing. STATUS TBD.
  5. I have chosen the novel to be completed (Road Closed, possibly with a new title). IN PROGRESS, though not much yet.
  6. Still mulling another month later. I am mulling both the site itself and the platform, so the mulling has become more in-depth. IN PROGRESS.
  7. I am not especially happy right now, but I am taking steps to hopefully address that. I didn’t run as much this month as I’d have liked, but am still running. I cut snacking enough to drop 3.5 pounds, so there’s that! I don’t think I’m bringing BAD into the world, so at the very least I’m kind of a carbon-neutral human. Sleep has been mostly decent, with “stress” interfering now and again. Let’s stick with this nebulous category as being IN PROGRESS.

Overall, February saw mostly minor steps forward, but with little regression. That works for me!

February 2024 weight loss report: Down 3.5 pounds

Not a typo! I am down, for real, this month. And not just by a rounding error amount, a full 3.5 pounds. How did such sorcery happen?

As it turns out, it was simple: no snacking. That was it. I stuck to my three daily meals and had no snacks on most days. I would occasionally allow myself something small on a run day, like a banana, or a chunk of cheese. But no cookies, crackers, candy or any of that.

And here we are, 3.5 pounds later.

But it’s not enough. I need to lose a lot more. I’m still 20 pounds from my target goal of 150 and losing 3.5 pounds means it would take another 5.7 months to get there (basically, September, or the tail end of summer) and I don’t want it to take almost six months.

I have not been running as frequently, so I am going to try to be more active, which will help (and just make me healthier in general, always a good thing).

For now, I can at least savour that I am down for the month and the (short) year. And to that, I offer a hearty woot.

Fake edit: Looking at the stats over the month, there’s been very little change. My body fat is slightly higher, which makes sense in that if my total weight is down, the percentage of my body that is roly-poly fat may increase a bit overall (at least in the short term). My muscle mass has gone down, which also makes sense due to the decrease in exercise.

Weight:
January 1, 2024: 172.3 pounds  
Current: 170.5 pounds
Year to date: Down 1.8 pounds

February 1: 174 pounds
February 29: 170.5 pounds (down 3.5 pounds)

Body fat: 
February 1: 26.1%
February 29: 26.0% (down 0.1%)

Skeletal muscle mass:
February 1: 30.7% 
February 29: 30.3% (down 0.4%)

Body water:
February 1: 54.0% 
February 29: 54.0% (unchanged)

Historical: January 1, 2022: 182.8 pounds

But is it art? Further photos to ponder

A crosswalk across a large parking lot:

And the same photo, after I finished abusing it with the perspective tool:

Construction sign that was:

  • cropped
  • had borders and other bits erased
  • converted to a high contrasts blue filter LUT
  • further tweaked with adjustments to black point, exposure, etc.

The original for comparison:

I added something new to my to-do list today

It’s set to repeat daily, endlessly:

You might be thinking, “What kind of hippie malarkey1Malarkey is officially my Word of the Week. is this?” And I would answer, it’s the best kind!

Because what “Touch a tree” really means is go outside for a walk and do it somewhere with nature and junk, not just down the sidewalk to the local Subway. Which I can do as there are areas like that no more than 10–15 minutes walking time from where I live.

And yes, today, I did touch a tree (I kind of cheated, because it was near a sidewalk, though I was not close to a Subway at the time).

Run 853: A song sparrow chooses life

View from Cariboo Dam, pre-run: Actual ripples on the water!

I didn’t run for the past week, but I have reasons!

  1. Last Wednesday I was dealing with condo nonsense and had no time.
  2. Last Friday I went birding because the weather was good. And I also walked over 28,000 steps, so it’s not like I was lazing on the couch eating Ding Dongs.

Regardless, as I headed out this morning, my training status had sunk to Detraining. Ouch.

By the time I had walked to the lake I had already lifted myself back up to Recovery mode and at the conclusion of the run I was back to Maintaining. Yay.

For a week off, the run went quite well. I had no issues, felt fine and while my pace was slower at 5:49/km, it’s still perfectly respectable, especially given the conditions. While it was sunny, it was also cool–only 4C–and unusually windy, with gusts up to 25 km/h. It definitely made the walk to the lake a little chillier than normal. The run itself wasn’t too bad, though.

The trail was surprisingly busy for a Monday morning, but I suspect the nice weather drew out more people than normal.

There was one odd moment during the run. I was on the main trail and ahead of me was a song sparrow, pecking around on the trail, as they do. Normally as I approach birds on the trail, they scatter as I get near, because I am a lumbering giant moving at a higher-than-normal speed. The song sparrow did not move. I entered what I considered its personal birb space, and it still didn’t move. At the last second, I cut sharp to the left, because if I hadn’t, there seemed a good chance that my right foot would have come down either on top of the song sparrow or very close to it. Just as I did this, it finally flew off.

I cannot remember ever having to alter my course to get around any kind of songbird. It happens regularly with Canada geese, because they own the place and you want to avoid the geese, not the other way around, but little bitty sparrows? Never!

Until this morning.

Anyway, it was a good run to start the week, even with the wind and the near-smooshing of an innocent song sparrow.

View of the lake, post-run. Still more ripples!
Run 853
Average pace: 5:49/km
Training status: Maintaining
Location: Burnaby Lake (CCW, short loop)
Start: 10:20 a.m.
Distance: 5:04 km
Time: 29:18
Weather: Sunny
Temp: 4ºC
Humidity: 70-66%
Wind: moderate, gusts up to 25 km/h (!)
BPM: 157
Weight: 170/9
Total distance to date: 6155 km
Devices: Garmin Forerunner 255 Music, iPhone 12, AirPods (3rd generation)
Shoes: HOKA Speedgoat 5 (290/538/828 km)

UFOs, UAPs and me

The prompt: A UFO silently gliding through the night sky above a dark, wooded area.

I have never seen a UFO, at least not to my knowledge. I’ve seen things in the night sky I couldn’t immediately identify, but were very likely planes, satellites, meteors or kids up to shenanigans.

These days, UFOs (Unidentified Flying Objects) are often called UAPs because the term is more encompassing: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena. It doesn’t assume conventional flight (or flight at all), or that the phenomena is an actual, physical object, but it still admits you can’t identify it.

Even though they sound more scientific, I have also never seen a UAP.

But lots of people have. In recent years, there have been so many UAP reports that they are now almost commonplace. They are discussed in the bodies of the U.S. government by credible and serious people who are not dismissed as lunatics. There are more photos and video you can shake a UFS (Unidentified Flying Stick) at. Even Mick West1Look him up. He’s an anti-conspiracy theorist, former video game designer and skeptic, but he’s also smart and fair. He has a website and, of course, a YouTube channel. probably can’t debunk all of them. Probably. (And let’s not even touch on how much of this stuff going forward is going to be a slurry of “AI”-generated nonsense. “It’s a real UAP, I swear. I don’t know why there’s a DALL-E watermark!”)

Some theorize that all this activity is to get the masses used to the idea of UAPs and all that may come with them, in preparation for…something. Probably not a giant spacecraft landing on the White House lawn, though it would honestly be hilarious if some other intelligence actually played into the trope. It’d be a great way to break the intergalactic ice, assuming they weren’t here to enslave and/or eat us.

It’s more likely that if these beings–whatever they might be, and assuming they are, in fact, real, would be preparing us for some sort of reveal that would make their presence among us undeniable. I’m not sure how this could be done in a subtle, yet convincing way. I actually read a book about this years ago, A.D. After Disclosure (links to my review way back in the olden times of 2012) and the various scenarios depicted in that book are, I think, accurate: We, as humans, would not react well. Right now, there is intelligent life in the universe, and it is us (insert joke about intelligence here). And if we never find any other intelligence, it means we are all alone–but also on top! No one is better than us, technology-wise, or society-wise, or evolution-wise. We’re #1. But as soon as another intelligence is confirmed, that changes abruptly and permanently. We would adapt, of course, but there would be a period of social chaos that would probably be unlike anything we’ve seen in human history as we re-orient ourselves as a species next to…whatever is sharing the universe with us.

All of this is to say that I am curious to see how all this UAP jazz plays out. On the one hand, definitive proof of other intelligent life would be very cool and spiffy. On the other hand, social chaos and all the mess afterwards would be…less so.

If anything zany happens, I’ll update this post, assuming the worlds isn’t cast into permanent upheaval, and I’m not living in a cave in the mountains or something. I would probably not have good Wi-Fi there.

Birding, February 23, 2024: Poopmonsters rustling their jimmies

Where: Tlahutum Regional Park (Coquitlam), Piper Spit and environs, Burnaby Lake (Burnaby)
Weather: Cloudy, some sun, 7-10°C

The Outing

Another Friday of birding, as the weather once more was looking not-great for Saturday.

The weather today was generally fine, with some actual sun at times, though it got a bit worse by the time we wrapped up at Piper Spit.

We started at Tlahutum and did our usual loop, then diverted right where we would normally go left and did a big ol’ loop around the park. Except you can’t actually do that, so what we really did was exit the park, head out into the suburbia of Port Coquitlam, then eventually reach another entrance to Tlahutum past the Red Bridge (which is red). We ventured forth from there and eventually reconnected to near our starting point. We got a lot of steps in1By the time we wrapped up for the day I had over 28,000 steps and Nic had 116 heart points, which mysteriously dropped to 115 later, as if Google decided it had overcompensated..

In terms of birds, Tlahutum always has the issue of birds never being super close, but we ended up seeing a pretty decent variety in the various ponds, river and other waterways. Songbirds were less common, though a song sparrow did thoughtfully pose and sing for us. We also saw some common mergansers, hooded mergansers, buffleheads, Northern flickers and even a few coots.

A couple of geese flew overhead and as you will see below, my camera had issues. It apparently got filthy over the last few weeks and some of my shots, such as the sequence showing the geese flying, then landing in the river, have the feel of semi-abstract art. If all of my photos had been like this, I would have been upset, but the image quality mostly cleared up after this bit, so I can appreciate the unintended artiness.

The filth my camera had accumulated, however, led to a lot of technical glitches, so I must solemnly vow to clean it after every use or else. Or else it will glitch again.

After our very long trip around Tlahutum, we went to Burnaby Lake, but instead of going to Piper Spit, we went to the area around the rowing pavilion, where we saw more common mergansers (they seem to be finally living up to their name), along with some herons, pigeons and lots of scenery. They also had a new boardwalk connecting to the remodelled pier. It was so new, I felt a bit naughty just being out there on it.

At Piper Spit, there was much bird drama to be had:

  • Gulls chasing crows (the gulls were back)
  • Crows chasing gulls (the crows were still there)
  • Pintails locking lips bills
  • Gulls coveting each other’s strange foreign objects
  • Canada geese going berserk in front and around us, repeatedly

The coots were actually some of the well-behaved waterfowl this time.

Speaking of waterfowl, most were present and in abundant numbers, but songbirds were scarcer. I only saw a few towhees (no pictures, boo) and a single junco, which rudely did not stop long enough for me to get a shot. Also boo.

By this point my camera was behaving quite badly and no amount of scolding would fix it. Fun symptoms included:

  • Images with weird artifacts and blurring
  • The EVF freezing
  • Exposure going completely off the chart in the EVF
  • Refusing to focus on anything
  • Focusing but the shutter refusing to work
  • Error messages about the contacts (they were quite yucky on inspection)

On top of this, the camera again got confused by complex backgrounds and would at times focus on the background instead of a bird, even when it appeared to be focusing on the bird in the EVF.

Still, I did get some shots that were acceptable, it was mild, and it didn’t rain, so I consider the day pretty good, despite the camera being a goof.

The Shots
Soon™. But here’s the Canada goose as art photo I mentioned above to start.

The Birds (and other critters)

Sparrows and sparrow-adjacent:

  • American robin
  • Black-capped chickadee (heard but not seen)
  • Dark-eyed junco
  • European starling
  • Golden-crowned sparrow
  • Northern flicker
  • Red-winged blackbird
  • Song sparrow
  • Spotted towhee

Waterfowl:

  • American coot
  • American wigeon
  • Bufflehead duck
  • Canada goose
  • Common merganser
  • Dowitcher
  • Gadwall
  • Great blue heron
  • Green-winged teal
  • Hooded merganser
  • Mallard
  • Northern pintail
  • Ring-necked duck
  • Scaup (Lesser and Greater)
  • Wood duck

Common:

  • American crow
  • Rock pigeon
  • Seagull

Raptors:

  • None!

Non-birds:

  • A squirrel

A few photos from Central Park

The one in Burnaby, not the one in New York. I didn’t want to walk that far today.

The weather was drizzly and misty, which added a certain mood. And I touched a tree. Again.

I might add a few more photos later, but there’s just enough friction with WordPress’s Gallery block that I’m inclined to stop at three for now.

How can 2019 already be five years ago?

Time is weird. With a cat.

I mean, really. Time is weird, and it just gets weirder.

I still remember when I was really young, and my family was at an event (I want to say a car race or something involving vehicles) and I asked my mom how much longer it would be (because I was apparently not being sufficiently entertained) and she said about ten minutes. And I had no idea how long ten minutes was. I inferred from her tone that it wasn’t very long, so that’s how I started to learn how to tell time–tone of voice.

The time for this post to come to an end is now.

I touched a tree today

And it allowed me to get this shot of the Brunette River. It was also drizzly in that “doesn’t seem like you’re getting wet but end up soaked by the time you get home” way. But worth it, because I touched a tree.

Run 852: Pace car! (But actually a person)

View from Cariboo Dam, pre-run: Calm and mostly clear.

I went birding instead of running on Friday, so this was my first run after four days off. In my favour: The conditions were good, with little wind, mild (for winter) temperatures and partly sunny skies.

Working against me: It’s Family Day, a stat holiday, and that meant the trail was packed with roving groups of people who only ever visit the lake on stat holidays. We’ll next meet again on Easter Monday!

Fortunately, it wasn’t that bad. Despite the crowds, I never had trouble navigating around others. And even the [colourful euphemism here] people who decided it was a good idea to go jogging with their off-leash dogs didn’t present any issues.

I wasn’t sure how it would go, but the walk to the lake was surprisingly nimble, so I was hopeful for a decent effort. Shortly before heading off clockwise, an older guy jogged by, and I figured I might see him once I started. Sure enough, I caught sight of him on the Avalon Trail, but for an older guy, he was keeping up a very good pace. I felt like I might be closing the gap, but only by tiny increments.

Somewhere past the 3K mark, the gap did genuinely begin to close. I wasn’t really pushing hard, so he must have started slowing. I finally made the decision to pass and put on the boosters, passed, then kept up the boosted speed for another 10 seconds or so before going back to my normal pace.

About a minute or so later, he passed me. The nerve! He apparently was determined to not be passed again, because the gap between us started to increase again. Right near the end I feel it was starting to once again close, but he went left and I went right, so there was no way to know who might have passed whom again. I’ll just pretend it was me!

All this extra effort had two effects: A year’s-best pace of 5:42/km for me, along with a higher-than-normal BPM of 159 (which is actually fine). Pleasingly, I experienced no issues, despite putting the proverbial pedal to the metal.

Overall, a better-than-expected start to the week and proof that my competitive spirit still burbles under the surface.

Still Creek, post-run. Awaiting its spring awakening.

Stats:

Run 852
Average pace: 5:42/km
Training status: Maintaining
Location: Burnaby Lake (CW)
Start: 9:47 a.m.
Distance: 5:03 km
Time: 28:41
Weather: Partly sunny
Temp: 6-7ºC
Humidity: 78-75%
Wind: light
BPM: 159
Weight: 171.1
Total distance to date: 6150 km
Devices: Garmin Forerunner 255 Music, iPhone 12, AirPods (3rd generation)
Shoes: HOKA Speedgoat 5 (285/530/815 km)

Billy Joel’s new single (in 2024): A story in three parts

Billy Joel is 74 years old as I write this, and still actively touring and playing shows. His last album, River of Dreams, came out in 1993.

Since then, he has written two singles, the last one 17 years ago1These were both oddballs, as they weren’t “classic” Joel songs he would have put onto one of his albums, so you could make the argument they don’t officially count. Earlier this month, he released a new single and, unlike the other two, this one could easily be slotted in with the tracks from either of his last two albums. It’s called “Turn the Lights Back On.”

Part 1: The Official Music Video and Single

A lyric version of the video was initially released, but now there’s another official version. It depicts a younger Joel performing the song in an empty venue before coming back and closing with Joel as he is today. The visual effects are decent, but not entirely convincing, so I found it vaguely creepy.

Alternate universe Billy Joel sings Billy Joel.

As for the actual song, it’s…fine? It reminds me of “Two Thousand Years” from River of Dreams, in tone, style and structure. I’d rank it is a solid effort, short of his classics, but far above his worst stuff. Pretty decent for someone who hasn’t exactly been cranking out new tunes for the last 30 years.

Part 2: The Live Version at the 2024 Grammys

The song was debuted at the 2024 Grammy Awards, with Joel accompanied by a full orchestra.

This universe’s Billy Joel playing the song at the Grammys.

Before seeing this, I’d read some wag online describing the performance as “lacking energy”, an assessment I don’t agree with.

  • First, it’s a slow, ballad-style song. He’s not going to be dancing on top of the piano.
  • Second, listen to his voice. He knows where to put the emphasis on the words, he knows how to draw out the emotion. This is a very Billy Joel song, and Billy Joel knows how to sing Billy Joel songs better than anyone.

His reaction at the end is cute, too. He takes off the cool shades and looks around, as if he just played his first audition at the age of 18. The crowd approved.

Keep in mind what I said above regarding emotion.

Part 3: The State of Pop Music Today and How Billy Joel is not Immune

We conclude with a third video from the Wings of Pegasus YouTube channel. This video is nearly 30 minutes long, so I don’t expect you to watch the whole thing (though that near-30 minutes went by fairly quickly for me).

I can’t decide if waking up with Fil’s hair would be the ultimate dream or nightmare.

This is an analysis of the two versions of the song. Fil often looks at the modern-day scourge of pitch correction software, and how it’s used to weld a singer’s voice to a specific upper range. The result inevitably scrubs a lot of tone and emotion from the voice. Remember above how I said Billy Joel really brings out the emotion of the song in the Grammy version?

The analysis video reveals that the official single uses pitch correction to essentially steamroll out everything that makes Joel’s voice and singing style uniquely his. It’s breathtaking, in a way, how something so simple–modulating the voice just a bit–can have such a profound effect on how a song hits you.

I wonder if Joel knows the single is pitch-controlled? The live version sounds great–yes, he sounds older, but you’re allowed to sound older when you’re 74–and as Fil points out, Joel recorded the song at 74–there’s no need to make him sound “younger” here, because he’s not trying to hit the high notes of a song he recorded 40 years ago. The result is just weird and a bit robotic. For a guy who wrote “All About Soul”, I can’t imagine he’d be happy with this. It’ll be interesting to see how it all shakes out in the end.